tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-116118542024-03-14T00:57:46.700-05:00Timotheos PrologizesFr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.comBlogger989125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-9430679144192290772020-03-22T21:16:00.003-05:002020-03-22T21:16:11.551-05:00Fourth Sunday in Lent<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fstfrancisanglicandallastx%2Fvideos%2F1017763491942582%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-2148987684109067692019-12-09T21:13:00.003-06:002019-12-09T21:14:23.442-06:00Fr Knox on the Immaculate Conception<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>On this year's feast of the Immaculate Conception, here is an excerpt from a sermon of Father Ronald Knox who argued that not only are Anglicans permitted to believe in the Immaculate Conception, we are required to do so by the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.
</i><b> </b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mary in the XXXIX Articles</b> </span></span><br />
[<i>Sermon preached at the Church of St James the Less, Plymouth, on the Feast of the Assumption before Fr. Knox's conversion to the Roman Church.</i>]<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">Most of us, I take it, believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is not only God, but man. So at least we are told in the Creed, <i>Quicumque vult</i>. Now if you will look at the ninth of the XXXIX Articles of Religion, you will find that Original Sin, in every person born into the world, deserves God's wrath and damnation. Are we therefore to conclude that Jesus Christ, being a man, was born into the world deserving God's wrath and damnation? If not, then we must suppose that some special dispensation of the grace of God broke off the entail of Original Sin, and prevented its reaching him. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">And in the fifteenth Article it is laid down that Christ was void of sin, both in his flesh and in his spirit. At what point, then, was the entail of Original Sin broken off? Of course, it might be open to us to imagine that it was broken off at the precise moment of the conception of Jesus in the womb of his Mother. But that view would be unscriptural, because there is no reference to any such process in the promises made to Mary. It would also be untraditional, for it is not the view of the holy Fathers of the Church.
It would also be contrary to reason. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">The Article tells us that Jesus was void of sin in his flesh as in his spirit. And in order that he might be void of sin in his flesh, he was not born by the ordinary process of nature, but of a virgin, who remained a virgin in her child-bearing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">Now, is it not unreasonable and materialistic to suppose that Jesus would not allow his Mother to be impure in her flesh, but would allow her to be impure in her spirit? That he would insist on her abstaining from the lawful use of holy matrimony, and yet would not insist on that true purity in her, which is the purity of the heart? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">It seems, rather, that she was absolutely pure in her soul as in her body, that Mary, like Jesus, and because of Jesus, and in virtue of the foreseen merits of the Passion of Jesus, was void of original sin. And that, I suppose, is why our Prayer Book Collect for Christmas Day is careful to describe Jesus as born, not merely of a virgin, but of a <i>pure</i> virgin. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">And if Mary was without Original Sin, she was also without Actual Sin. For if she, born like Eve sinless, had sinned like Eve, then it would have been a second fall of man. By her disobedience she would have contracted the guilt of Original Sin afresh, and so Jesus would have been born in sin after all. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b4a7d6;">Someone might still refuse to call her sinless, on the ground that she may have sinned after Jesus' birth. I only ask, is that likely? That she, who had refrained from sin in obedience to the God she had never seen, would have sinned when she had Jesus in her arms, Jesus at her breast, when she had seen him hang on the cross, and ascend into heaven?
</span>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-1258424928921038462019-05-30T11:27:00.001-05:002019-06-08T11:13:55.471-05:00What's wrong with the 2019 Prayer Book?<b>To the Bishops and Delegates of the Anglican Church in North America:</b><br />
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In the third century, Tertullian wrote: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground”</span> (<i>The Chaplet, or De Corona, ch. 3</i>).<br />
<br />
This Memorial Day, I was reminded of how grievous it is to those who served our country in the military to see the flag ever touch the ground (<i>U.S. Flag Code, §8b</i>). I am sure we would never want to allow something so much more than a mere symbol, the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, to be treated in such a way.<br />
<br />
I am writing to encourage you to return the rubric regarding the treatment of the consecrated Bread and Wine that remain after communion to the original draft at the upcoming Provincial Assembly.<br />
<br />
<b>Original 2019 BCP Draft: </b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-style: italic;">Apart from that which is to be reserved, the Priest or Deacon, and other communicants, shall reverently consume the remaining consecrated Bread and Wine either after the Ministration of Communion or after the Dismissal. </span><br />
<br />
At the very least, the underlined portion of the rubric as it currently appears (below) on page 141 of the proposed 2019 book could be removed.<br />
<br />
<b>Current 2019 BCP Draft:</b> <i><span style="color: #f1c232;">If any consecrated Bread or Wine remains after the Communion, it may be set aside in a safe place for future reception. Apart from that which is to be set aside, the Priest or Deacon, and other communicants, reverently consume the remaining consecrated Bread, either after the Ministration of Communion or after the Dismissal. The wine shall likewise be consumed <u>or reverently poured in a place set aside for that purpose. </u></span></i><br />
<br />
In either case, such a change would return the rubric to conformity with the English Prayer Book of 1662 (which is the model for our edition and which we claim not to depart from in theology) and it would conform to all of the subsequent Anglican Prayer Books as well.<br />
<br />
I outlined the argument for correcting this rubric in my Youtube video.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pzs2RbnRQUI" width="480"></iframe>
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To summarize:<br />
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● The universal tradition of the Prayer Book, beginning with the English and continuing through the various editions of each province, has been for a rubric prescribing reverent consumption of the remaining elements of consecrated Bread and Wine (apart from that to be reserved). No rubric has ever authorized pouring the consecrated Wine on the ground or into the piscina/sacrarium.<br />
<br />
● Such action is considered a sacrilege in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. For comparison, if any of the sacrament were to accidentally spill upon the carpet during the administration of communion, that carpet is removed and burned (much like a flag that has been desecrated). Imagine the action that would be taken against someone who poured it out intentionally.<br />
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● For Roman Catholics, pouring the consecrated Wine into the piscina/sacrarium is considered “throwing away” the Sacrament, according to Canon 1367 and incurs the penalty of an automatic excommunication reserved to the Holy See. If a cleric does this, he can also be defrocked. This interpretation of the canon was confirmed by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in paragraph 107 of the document <i>Remptionis Sacramentum</i>, issued to deal with common liturgical abuses.<br />
<br />
It is true that mishandling the consecrated Wine is a common liturgical abuse, but the proper way to handle it is with awareness, training, and discipline, rather than by changing the liturgical law to accommodate the abuse. The piscina/sacrarium is <b>only</b> used for the disposal of ashes, salt, and water and <b>never</b> for the Precious Blood.<br />
<br />
As St Leo the Great expressed it in his famous Ascension Day sermon, “<span style="color: #f1c232;">Our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments</span>” (<i>Sermo 2 de Ascensione1-4: PL 54,397-399</i>). It is no wonder that the Christians of the early centuries had a great love of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Some were even martyred to protect it, just as they laid down their lives to protect the holy Scriptures.<br />
<br />
Consider the <a href="http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/homilies/bk2hom15.htm">“Homily on the Worthy Receiving and Reverend Esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ”</a> in the <i>Second Book of Homilies</i>. Think of the devotional writings on the Holy Communion of our own great Anglican divines like Lancelot Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, John Cosin, Herbert Thorndike, Richard Hooker, and more. I can’t imagine any one of them ever pouring the Precious Blood of Christ upon the ground.<br />
<br />
I implore you to correct this rubric in the upcoming Provincial Assembly. We need to get it right this time, rather than wait another 50 to 100 years for the next revision. And frankly, if we can fix the typo in the table of contents, we can surely fix this.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;">Appendix:Frequently Asked Questions</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Are you just trying to sabotage a Prayer Book you don't like?</span></b><br />
No. I am in favor of the book, provided that this problem with the rubric is corrected. While not perfect, I believe it is a sound edition and there is much to admire and appreciate.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Why did you not send this feedback to the drafting committee via the proper channels?</span></b><br />
I did submit feedback to the drafting committee on other items regarding the book that I thought could be improved. In considering feedback to offer about the Texts for Common Prayer, it never occurred to me that something would be proposed that would be detrimental to the faith and order of the Church. The original draft of this rubric was completely orthodox, and I did not realize it was changed in a subsequent draft in 2018 until after the final book was issued. In any case, there was no feedback solicited after that final version appeared in the Spring of 2019, which changed the rubric again.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Why did you not contact your bishop about this?</span></b><br />
I did. I had an earlier version of the video I showed him. He offered encouragement and some tips to make the presentation better.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Why do you call this a sacrilege?</span></b><br />
Sacrilege is the mistreatment of sacred things. It is a sin by thwarting the virtue of religion. Using holy things in a profane or common way is central to the act of sacrilege. Part of the way of determining how such holy things <i>ought</i> to be handled is to consider them teleologically, that it, with their end purpose in mind. The bread and wine are consecrated with the end purpose of eating and drinking them. The reservation of the Sacrament simply delays that end. To deliberately put them to another ultimate purpose would be mistreating them, that is, not using them in accordance with their end purpose. To call this action a sacrilege is merely a statement that such holy things are not being handled properly and does not necessarily mean that it was done with any malice.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Is this blasphemy?</span></b><br />
No. Blasphemy is dishonoring God through a verbal assault (or some written or symbolic speech). To proclaim, "There is no God!", or to curse God would be examples. This is not the case here by the nature of the act; it is sacrilege rather than a blasphemy. Also, this is almost always done in ignorance rather than defiance, so there is typically no question of symbolic speech being involved.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Is the ground an appropriate place for the Communion elements?</span></b><br />
No. Remember they were set apart as holy in order to ultimately be consumed. Also, the ground is often held to be a place of disrespect. Allowing the flag to touch the ground is against the flag code. We have seen people do just that in order to desecrate the flag in protest. Muslims are offended if the Quran touches the ground. In Christianity, the Holy Bible or other sacred objects cast upon the ground would be taken by most people as a sign of disrespect. Indeed, such tactics are often used by those who violently persecute the Church.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Isn't the piscina in the sacristy the place for excess Communion wine?</span></b><br />
No. It is a drain leading to the ground for the disposal of ablutions (the water from cleaning the sacred vessels). It is also the place to pour out blessed salt, ashes, and holy water. Generally, older holy oils are burned, but if this is impractical, they could be put into the piscina.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Don't you realize how common it is to pour out excess Communion wine?</span></b><br />
Yes, it is a very common problem, but still technically a liturgical abuse. Thankfully, it is almost always done out of ignorance, not from any impious motive. That is a positive sign because that means that increased awareness and training can help tremendously. It is one thing to have a rule that is routinely disobeyed. It is quite another to change the rule in order to bring the multitude into "obedience."<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">What if there is too much Communion wine left over to drink?</span></b><br />
That is a problem that should occur rarely (such as at a funeral where it is thought that many would communicate, but very few do). In those cases, reverence requires toughing it out with as many people and as much time as it takes to get the job done. And of course, the remaining Sacrament was consumed <i>after</i>, rather than <i>during</i> the liturgy for most of the history of the Prayer Book. Personally, I once had to consume over a full flagon. It gave me a headache, but not a guilty conscience. If there is regularly too much wine being consecrated, the quantity should be lowered. There is a provision for consecrating more of either element if needed, and in fact that last bit remaining in the chalice can stretch far longer than most think when people are only taking the smallest sip.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Does the mandatory consumption of the Communion wine require belief in transubstantiation?</span></b><br />
No. While the Church of England professes believe in the "true" and "real" Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, it does not specify a philosophical explanation. The <a href="https://www.cte.org.uk/Publisher/File.aspx?id=10840">ecumenical theological study</a> <i>Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry</i> recommends reverent consumption. And the Church of England’s <i>Guidelines on the Ecumenical Canons</i> argue that <span style="color: #f1c232;">“This provision for reverent consumption </span><span style="color: #f1c232;">dates back to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and has helped to hold in unity worshippers with a variety of understandings of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist”</span>.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">If someone pours it out reverently, how can it still be a sacrilege?</span></b><br />
Reverence is not just about feeling, nor even primarily about feeling. It is about the fittingness of our actions. The idea that the moral reality of a situation is governed by our feelings stems from the logical fallacy called solipsism. For example, when the Ark of the Covenant was being brought back from captivity by the Philistines to be returned to Jerusalem in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Samuel+6%3A6-7&version=RSV">2 Samuel 6:6-7</a>, the oxen stumbled along the road and to keep it from falling off the cart, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark. He was immediately struck dead by God. According to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+4%3A15&version=RSV">Numbers 4:15</a>, whenever the Ark was being transported, the temple workers were instructed not to touch any of the sacred objects on pain of death. Undoubtedly, Uzzah reached out with love and devotion, not wanting any harm to come to the sacred vessel. However, he acted in defiance of the clear commandment given in the Bible. So while he may have felt reverent, his action was a sacrilege.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Do you think the Prayer Book can be voted down at Assembly?</span></b><br />
Since the video, I have heard that the Prayer Book will not be put to a vote at the Provincial Assembly. I had assumed it would be adopted by canon (and canons are passed by the Provincial Council and ratified by the consent of the Provincial Assembly), but that may not be the case. If so, I don't think that procedure was related to this issue; more likely it goes back to the idea of the Prayer Book not being forced on anyone, which was part of the bad feelings over the 1979 Prayer Book. Either way, a change in the rubrics would have to come out of the House of Bishops. Since there are already at least six typos to change, it would be an opportunity to consider this rubric as well.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">What will be the consequence if the rubric is not fixed?</span></b><br />
That remains to be seen, and hopefully we will never find out. Surely some bishops will forbid the book entirely if it endorses handling the blessed Sacrament in a sacrilegious manner. That puts the whole province in a very awkward position. Having an official liturgy which is officially banned by some of its own bishops harms our ministry within the communion as well as our witness to outsiders, with whom we are to share the transforming love of Jesus Christ. It also casts doubt on the integrity of the whole book (<i>i.e.</i>, if this bad rubric is in there, what other problems might be in the book?).<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: large;">Appendix: Rubrics from Anglican Prayer Books </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1637 Book of Common Prayer (Scottish)
</span></b><i>And if any of the Bread and Wine remain, which is consecrated, it shall be reverently
eaten and drunk by such of the communicants only as the Presbyter which celebrates
shall take unto him, but it shall not be carried out of the Church. And to the end that
there be little left, he that officiates is required to consecrate with the least, and then if
there be want, the words of consecration may be repeated again, over more, either
bread or wine: the Presbyter beginning at the words in the prayer of consecration (our
Saviour in the night that he was betrayed, took, &c.) </i><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1662 Book of Common Prayer (Church of England)
</span></b><i>And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecrated, the Curate shall have it to his
own use: but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of
the Church, but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as he shall then call
unto him, shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. </i><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1789 Book of Common Prayer (American)</span></b> <i>And if any of the consecrated Bread and Wine remain after the Communion, it shall not
be carried out of the Church; but the Minister and other Communicants shall,
immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1918 Book of Common Prayer (Canada) </span></b><i>And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecrated, the Curate shall have it to his own use: but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the Church, but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same.</i><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1892 Book of Common Prayer (American)</span></b>
<i>And if any of the consecrated Bread and Wine remain after the Communion it shall not
be carried out of the Church; but the Minister and other Communicants shall,
immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. </i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>1928 Book of Common Prayer (American)</b>
</span><i>And if any of the consecrated Bread and Wine remain after the Communion, it shall not
be carried out of the Church; but the Minister and other Communicants shall,
immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1962 Book of Common Prayer (Canada)</span></b> <i>If any of the consecrated Bread and Wine remain, the Priest and other Communicants shall reverently eat and drink the same, either when all have communicated, or immediately after the Blessing. In the latter case, immediately after the Communion the Priest shall reverently place the same upon the holy Table, and cover them with a fair linen cloth.</i><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1979 Book of Common Prayer (American)</span></b>
<i>If any of the consecrated Bread or Wine remain, apart from any which may be required
for the Communion of the sick, or of others who for weighty cause could not be present
at the celebration, or for the administration of Communion by a deacon to a
congregation when no priest is available, the celebrant or deacon, and other
communicants, reverently eat and drink it, either after the Communion of the people or
after the Dismissal. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">2003 Book of Common Prayer (Reformed Episcopal Church)</span> </b><i>If any consecrated Bread or Wine remain, apart from that which </i><i>may be required for the Communion of the sick, the Celebrant or</i><br />
<i>Deacon and other communicants shall reverently eat or drink it, </i><i>either after the Communion of the people or immediately after the </i><i>dismissal.</i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>2019 Book of Common Prayer (Anglican Church in North America)</b>
</span><i>If any consecrated Bread or Wine remains after the Communion, it may be set aside in a
safe place for future reception. Apart from that which is to be set aside, the Priest or
Deacon, and other communicants, reverently consume the remaining consecrated
Bread, either after the Ministration of Communion or after the Dismissal. The wine shall
likewise be consumed or reverently poured in a place set aside for that purpose.
</i>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-81979624304881042622018-05-09T14:58:00.004-05:002018-05-09T18:24:06.304-05:00Is Judas in hell?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjlX_-2PCYNptMYQqiR64uzgH9LkOjPOovyS5Z0DeI48WTh26V8Bn7W1QJiKZH3MTIdYbGpOSRWKTTDHLpV3y5gpxl8lySp_vi_cj77UBawYPZQ7Yy7oVI5CbIszlz7zO2KdVv/s1600/Black+halo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="380" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjlX_-2PCYNptMYQqiR64uzgH9LkOjPOovyS5Z0DeI48WTh26V8Bn7W1QJiKZH3MTIdYbGpOSRWKTTDHLpV3y5gpxl8lySp_vi_cj77UBawYPZQ7Yy7oVI5CbIszlz7zO2KdVv/s400/Black+halo.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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The question came up during our <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-321809567/lectionary-bible-study-yr-b-easter-7">lectionary Bible study for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B</a> since Judas and his betrayal and end is mentioned in both the first reading and the gospel. Here are the passages:<br />
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<b>Acts 1:16-20</b> [Peter said,] <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us, and was allotted his share in this ministry. (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)"</span><br />
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<b>John 17:12</b> [Jesus said,] <span style="color: #f1c232;">"While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled."</span><br />
<br />
I asserted that the scriptures teach that Judas is in hell. Others were not so sure. It has become quite fashionable to postulate, along with Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Dare we hope that all men be saved?" There is a reluctance by some to fathom that there is anyone in hell. Somehow the teaching of Jesus in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+13%3A23%E2%80%9324&version=RSV">Luke 13:23-24</a> that the road to perdition is broad and many are lost on it gets lost itself.<br />
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The main objection to the idea of Judas in hell was the idea that we cannot know the inner life of an individual soul and we cannot therefore judge one's ultimate fate.<br />
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I would agree with this objection, accept that in this case, we are given that information <i>via</i> divine revelation. It is not a question of private discernment (judging the state of one's soul), but of receiving what the Word of God has to say to us. Similarly, we affirm that (contrary to Calvinism), God predestines no one to hell. But in this case, we are not talking about predestination and election, but about revelation and prophecy.<br />
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Another question was whether Judas repented. Matthew 27:3-4 records, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the
elders, saying, 'I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.'" </span>The word for repent here is μεταμέλομαι (metamelomai), which in Greek thought is a reorientation of mind. So clearly, Judas had remorse and regret for his action. Some alternative translations are: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"he felt remorse"</span> (NASB), <span style="color: #f1c232;">"deeply regretted what he had done"</span> (NAB), and <span style="color: #f1c232;">"he was seized with remorse"</span> (NIV). The Greek word which indicates a change of mind is less conclusive than the Hebrew precursor which is a change of physical direction. We can see from Judas' suicide that it did not become the Hebrew kind of repentance. His remorse led to despair rather than to reconciliation.<br />
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<i>So here is my argument that the Bible teaches us that Judas is in hell:</i><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Son of Perdition</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"None of them is lost,"</span> Jesus said, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"but <b>the son of perdition</b>"</span> (Jn 17:12). "Perdition" is an old fashioned word we don't use much anymore. Some more modern translations render this as "son of destruction." The NIV elaborates slightly with <span style="color: #f1c232;">"the one doomed to destruction"</span> and the NRSV paraphrases with <span style="color: #f1c232;">"the one destined to be lost."</span><br />
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The context is that Jesus is praying for his disciples before his crucifixion. He prays for their unity and their time alone in a hostile world full of temptations. Jesus praises the Father that he has protected them in the past and will do so in the future, assuring them that none of them will be lost except the son of perdition.<br />
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<i>Perdition</i> here is the Greek word ἀπώλεια (apōleia), which means "utter destruction" or "waste." It is also used in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matt+26%3A8%3B+Mk.+14%3A4%3B+Mt.+7%3A13%3B+Acts+8%3A20&version=MOUNCE">Matthew 26:8; Mark 14:4; Matthew 7:13; and Acts 8:20</a>. Theologically, it has often been used as a synonym for damnation. It can also mean "ruin" or "loss." I would say that Jesus calling Judas an offspring of destruction here is tantamount to giving him the title "Child of Hell," and that's a pretty definitive statement (prophecy) about his ultimate fate.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">The Calling of Matthias</span></b><br />
When the Church chooses a new apostle to replace Judas, it is a dramatic statement about the fate of Judas. Not many people pick up on this connection.<br />
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We should observe that the word "apostle" is used in three senses in Christian writing. (A) The first sense is in a reference to one of the Twelve. These are to be the patriarchs of a renewed Israel. That's why the number is significant. Jesus explained in Matthew 19:28, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Truly I tell you, in the new world, when the Son of Man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."</span> (B) The next sense is in the calling of additional apostles for the mission to the Gentiles. In almost every way, these have the same power and authority as the Twelve. They are simply not a part of that quorum. But they are witnesses to the risen Lord sent out to proclaim the gospel to all nations. They have the authority to teach and define doctrine, to plant churches, and to ordain bishops and other clergy to continue their work. Think of them as missionary bishops. Paul and Barnabas are examples. (C) The final sense is a metaphorical use of the term apostle. In this sense, Mary Magdalene is called the "First Apostle" or the "Apostle to the Apostles" since she first brought the news of the resurrection to the disciples. Likewise, Patrick is called the "Apostle to the Irish" and Cyril and Methodius are the "Apostles to the Slavs."<br />
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Matthias is chosen as an apostle in the first sense (A), to be one of the Twelve. Because there is a vacancy in the Twelve, Peter proposes replacing Judas in preparation for the birth of the Church at Pentecost. <i>None of the other apostles were ever replaced</i>. When the Apostle James the Great was killed by Herod in Acts 12:2, Peter did not call for his replacement. James was still an apostle. Even though dead, he was alive in Christ, and he had his reserved chair among the twelve thrones of judgment. The bishops were <i>successors</i> to the apostles, but not <i>replacement</i> apostles.<br />
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What's does this mean for the fate of Judas? The clear implication here is that Judas is not a dead apostle (otherwise he would not need to be replaced). Rather, Judas is in hell, so there is now a vacancy in the quorum of the Twelve Apostles which needs to be filled. Judas' throne is empty and it will be filled by a new apostle named Matthias. Notice how Peter put it in his prayer: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Show which one of these two thou hast chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside, <i>to go to his own place</i>"</span> (Acts 1:24-25). Surely the place to which Peter refers is not the Field of Blood, but the fires of hell. Otherwise, there would be no need to replace Judas.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">The Universal Witness of Tradition</span></b><br />
The Church Fathers do not comment very often on Judas' fate, focusing more attention on the awfulness of his betrayal. But whenever they do, their opinion is consistent.<br />
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Pope St Leo the Great taught, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"The godless betrayer, shutting his mind to all these things</span> [<i>i.e.,</i> expressions of the Lord’s mercy], <span style="color: #f1c232;">turned upon himself, <i>not with a mind to repent, but in the madness of self-destruction</i>: so that this man who had sold the Author of life to the executioners of his death, even in the act of dying sinned unto <i>the increase of his own eternal punishment</i>"</span> (<i>Sermon 62, De passione Domini XI</i>).<br />
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St Augustine of Hippo observed, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Judas, when he killed himself, killed <i>a wicked man</i>, and passed from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but also with his own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing himself was another crime"</span> (<i>The City of God</i>, Bk. I, ch. 17).<br />
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St John Chrysostom noted, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"For this reason also the wicked one dragged Judas out of this world <i>lest he should make a fair beginning, and so return by means of repentance to the point from which he fell</i>" </span>(<i>An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall</i>, Letter 1).
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And in the <i>Summa</i>, Aquinas addressed the issue when he taught, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"To save Judas would … be contrary to [God’s] foreknowledge and disposition, by which <i>he prepared for him eternal punishment</i>; hence it is not the order of justice [as such] that <i>renders impossible Judas’s salvation</i>, but the order of eternal foreknowledge and disposition"</span> (<i>In IV Sent., dist. 46, qu. 1, art. 2, qa. 2, ad 3</i>).
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We should also note that the liturgy is consistent in any reference to Judas in this regard. The collect for Maundy Thursday in the <i>usus antiquitor</i> of the Roman Rite expresses it this way:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">O God, <i>from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt</i>, and the thief the reward of his confession: Grant unto us the full fruit of thy clemency; that even as in his Passion our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each retribution according to his merits, so having cleared away our former guilt, he may bestow on us the grace of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth . . . </span><br />
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It is therefore no surprise that at the very bottom of the <i>Inferno</i>, Dante and Virgil place Judas in the Ninth Circle of Hell where all is ice, fanned frozen by the furious flapping of Satan’s wings. There, the devil gnaws on Judas’ head and claws at his back forever.
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God desires all men to be saved, St Paul assures us. We know that Jesus must have loved Judas dearly. His betrayal surely broke the Lord's heart. He called Judas to great things, not to destruction. Knowing the damned state of Judas, the lament of Jesus in the gospel is all the more poignant. Jesus said, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him,but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had never been born"</span> (Mark 14:21).Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-61425573070921387522018-03-06T12:48:00.000-06:002018-03-06T12:48:05.940-06:00Defence of the Seven Sacraments: Week 3 - Baptism and Confirmation<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/409109502&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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Baptism is possibly the one sacrament where Catholic and Lutheran doctrine is closest. Luther’s chapter here is milder than some other parts of his treatise. Luther is far more vicious about baptism when confronting Anabaptists. (Luther advocated the death penalty for Anabaptists for being open blasphemers. His preferred method was drowning.)
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<b>Luther says . . .</b>
3.1 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to the riches of His mercy has preserved in His Church this sacrament at least, untouched and untainted by the ordinances of men, and has made it free to all nations and every estate of mankind, nor suffered it to be oppressed by the filthy and godless monsters of greed and superstition.”</span><br />
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In contrast to all the “tearing down” with the Eucharist, Luther is more prone to praise baptism. <b>But Henry begins his critique</b> noting a lack of balance:
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“Nor does he praise any one of the Sacraments, unless to the Prejudice of another; for he so much extols Baptism, that he depresses Penance: Though he has treated of Baptism itself after such a Manner, that it had been better he had not touched it at all.”</span> (pg 173)<br />
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St Jerome makes the analogy of penance as the "second" gangway plank to reboard the ship of the Church. Luther asserts that infant baptism was providential because adult baptism would be more prone to superstition. But since adults don’t remember their baptism, they also have a tendency to forget it.<br />
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3.2 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“But Satan, though he could not quench the power of baptism in little children, nevertheless succeeded in quenching it in all adults, so that scarcely anyone calls to mind their baptism and still fewer glory in it. So many other ways have they discovered of ridding themselves of their sins and of reaching heaven. The source of these false opinions is that dangerous saying of St. Jerome's – either unhappily phrased or wrongly interpreted – which he terms penance 'the second plank' after the shipwreck, as if baptism were not penance. Accordingly, when men fall into sin, they despair of 'the first plank,' which is the ship, as though it had gone under, and fasten all their faith on the second plank, that is, penance. This has produced those endless burdens of vows, religious works, satisfactions, pilgrimages, indulgences, and sects, from this has arisen that flood of books, questions, opinions and human traditions, which the world cannot contain. So that this tyranny plays worse havoc with the Church of God than any tyrant ever did with the Jewish people or with any other nation under heaven.” </span>What is the object of faith for Luther? Does Luther end up having faith in baptism more than faith in God?<br />
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3.4 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Now, the first thing in baptism to be considered is the divine promise, which says: '<i>He that believes and is baptized shall be saved</i>.' This promise must be set far above all the glitter of works, vows, religious orders, and whatever man has added to it. For on it all our salvation depends. We must consider this promise, exercise our faith in it and never doubt that we are saved when we are baptized. For unless this faith be present or be conferred in baptism, we gain nothing from baptism. No, it becomes a hindrance to us, not only in the moment of its reception, but all the days of our life. For such lack of faith calls God's promise a lie, and this is the blackest of all sins. When we try to exercise this faith, we shall at once perceive how difficult it is to believe this promise of God. For our human weakness, conscious of its sins, finds nothing more difficult to believe than that it is saved or will be saved. Yet unless it does believe this, it cannot be saved, because it does not believe the truth of God that promises salvation.”</span><br />
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3.5 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“This message should have been persistently impressed upon the people and this promise diligently repeated to them. Their baptism should have been called again and again to their mind, and faith constantly awakened and nourished.” </span><br />
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3.7<span style="color: #f1c232;"> "The children of Israel, whenever they repented of their sins, turned their thoughts first of all to the exodus from Egypt, and, remembering this, returned to God Who had brought them out. This memory and this refuge were many times impressed upon them by Moses, and afterward repeated by David. How much rather ought we to call to mind our exodus from Egypt, and, remembering, turn back again to Him Who led us forth through the washing of regeneration, which we are bidden remember for this very purpose. And this we can do most fittingly in the sacrament of bread and wine."</span><br />
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<b>Henry’s response </b>about faith and good works leads right into the once saved, always saved issue:
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“And having in many Words shown what this Faith is, he afterwards extols the Riches of Faith, to the End he may render us poor of good Works, without which (as St. James saith ) Faith is altogether dead. But Luther so much commends Faith to us, as not only to permit us to abstain from good Works; but also encourages us to commit any Kind of Action, how bad soever:”
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3.8 <span style="color: #f1c232;">"See, how rich therefore is a Christian, the one who is baptized! Even if he wants to, he cannot lose his salvation, however much he sin, unless he will not believe. <b>For no sin can condemn him save unbelief alone.</b> All other sins – so long as the faith in God's promise made in baptism returns or remains –all other sins, I say, are immediately blotted out through that same faith, or rather through the truth of God, because He cannot deny Himself. . . .</span><br />
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3.9 <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Again, how perilous, no, how false it is to suppose that penance is the second plank after the shipwreck! How harmful an error it is to believe that the power of baptism is broken, and the ship has foundered, because we have sinned! . . . If one be able somehow to return to the ship, it is not on any plank but in the good ship herself that he is carried to life."</span><br />
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<b>Henry answers</b> that infidelity is no special sin compared with so many others:
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“What Christian Ears can with Patience hear the pestilentious hissing of this Serpent, by which he extols Baptism, for no other end, but to depress Penance, and establish the Grace of Baptism for a free Liberty of Sinning?” . . . “He denies sin to be the shipwreck of faith” </span><br />
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Henry’s logic: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Therefore since Faith becomes dead by wicked Works, why can it not be said, that he suffers Ship-wreck who falls from the Grace of God, into the Hands of the Devil?” (p 174) . . . “Has St. Jerome written wickedly in this? Does the whole Church follow an impious Opinion, for not believing Luther, that Christians are safe enough by Faith alone, in the midst of their Sins, without Penance?” . . . “After this, he so magnifies Faith, that he seems almost to intimate, that Faith alone is sufficient without the Sacrament. For in the meanwhile, he deprives the Sacrament of Grace; he says, ‘that the Sacrament itself profits nothing;’ denies that the Sacraments confer any Grace; or that they are effectual Signs of Grace; or that the Sacraments of the Evangelical Law differ in any Kind from those of the Mosaical Law, as touching the Efficacy of Grace:” </span><br />
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<b>Luther had stated:</b>
3.17 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“. . . it is an error to hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in the effectiveness of their <i>signifying</i>. The <i>signifying</i> of both is equally effective. The same God Who now saves me by baptism saved Abel by his sacrifice, Noah by the rainbow, Abraham by circumcision, and all the others by their respective signs."</span><br />
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3.19 <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Even so it is not baptism that justifies or benefits anyone, but it is faith in the word of promise, to which baptism is added. This faith justifies, and fulfils that which baptism signifies."</span><br />
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<b>Henry responded </b>by quoting Hugo of St Victor and Augustine and the OT (p 175) Then Henry summarizes his critique. Luther asks for too much on the part of the recipient of baptism, almost making it a subjective work (the trap of wondering if one has believed enough).
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“He promised Remission of Sins, and Grace from the Sacrament itself, to all those who should but only present themselves, and desire it: For an undoubted and certain Faith, is a very great Thing, which happens not always, nor to every Body”</span> (p 177).<br />
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Henry looks for balance: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“But as I do not think, that Faith alone, without the Sacrament, is sufficient for him who may receive it; so neither can the Sacrament suffice him without Faith; but that both ought to concur and co-operate with their Power”</span> (p 177). Luther’s concentration on faith ends up being a cover for a life of wicked living.<br />
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<b>Luther stated:</b>
3.27 <span style="color: #f1c232;">"This glorious liberty of ours, and this understanding of baptism have been carried captive in our day. And whom have we to thank for this but the Roman pontiff with his despotism? . . . </span><br />
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3.28 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Therefore I say: neither the pope nor a bishop nor any other man has the right to impose a single syllable of law upon a Christian man without his consent. If he does, it is done in the spirit of tyranny. Therefore the prayers, fasts, donations, and whatever else the pope decrees and demands in all of his decretals, as numerous as they are evil, he demands and decrees without any right whatever. He sins against the liberty of the Church whenever he attempts any such thing.”</span><br />
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<b>Henry responds:</b> <span style="color: #f1c232;">“I only ask this, That if none, either Man or Angel, can appoint any Law among Christians, why does the Apostle institute for us so many Laws . . . If the Apostles did, of themselves, beside the especial Command of our Lord, appoint so many Things to be observed by Christians, why may not those who succeed them, do the same for the Good of the People?”</span> (p 178-9).<br />
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<b>Luther stated:</b> 3.31 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“We must know and strongly affirm that the making of such laws is unjust, that we will bear and rejoice in this injustice. We will be careful neither to justify the tyrant nor complain against his tyranny.”</span><br />
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<b>Henry sees hypocrisy in Luther</b>, since Luther was quick to invoke the power of the state on the church’s behalf. <span style="color: #f1c232;">“If Luther is of Opinion, that People ought not to obey; why does he say they must obey? If he thinks they ought to obey, why is not he himself obedient? Why does this Quack juggle thus? Why does he thus reproachfully raise himself against the Bishop of Rome, whom he says we ought to obey?”</span> (p 179).<br />
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<b>Luther’s infamous tirade: </b> 3.31 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Nevertheless, since few know this glory of baptism and the blessedness of Christian liberty, and cannot know them because of the tyranny of the pope, I for one will walk away from it all and redeem my conscience by bringing this charge against the pope and all his papists: Unless they will abolish their laws and traditions, and restore to Christ's churches their liberty and have it taught among them, they are guilty of all the souls that perish under this miserable captivity, and the papacy is truly the kingdom of Babylon, yes, the kingdom of the real Antichrist! For who is <i>the man of sin</i> and <i>the son of perdition</i> but he that with his doctrines and his laws increases sins and the perdition of souls in the Church, while he sits in the Church as if he were God? All this the papal tyranny has fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, these many centuries. It has extinguished faith, obscured the sacraments and oppressed the Gospel. But its own laws, which are not only impious and sacrilegious, but even barbarous and foolish, it has enjoined and multiplied world without end.” </span><br />
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<b>Luther on Confirmation:</b>
5.2 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“I do not say this because I condemn the seven sacraments, but because I deny that they can be proved from the Scriptures. . . . For, in order that there be a sacrament, there is required above all things a word of divine promise, whereby faith, may be trained. But we read nowhere that Christ ever gave a promise concerning confirmation, although He laid hands on many.” </span><br />
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5.3 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Hence it is sufficient to regard confirmation as a certain churchly rite or sacramental ceremony, similar to other ceremonies, such as the blessing of holy water and the like. For if every other creature is sanctified by the word and by prayer, (1 Timothy 4:4 <i>ff.</i>) why should not much rather man be sanctified by the same means? Still, these things cannot be called sacraments of faith, because there is no divine promise connected with them, neither do they save; but sacraments do save those who believe the divine promise.”</span><br />
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<b>Henry responds</b> by opening his chapter with: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Luther is so far from admitting Confirmation to be a Sacrament, that, on the Contrary, he says, he admires what the Church’s Intention was in making it one.”</span> Henry points out that not all words of Jesus were included in the New Testament, so Luther's argument is an argument from ignorance. Henry also returns to his oft repeated point that it's hard to believe the church, following ancient tradition, could be so wrong for so long, throughout the world until Luther came along.<br />
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Henry explained: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"I do not think that any Person, who has the least Spark of Faith in him, can be persuaded, that Christ, who prayed for St. Peter, that his Faith should not fail; who placed his Church on a firm Rock; should suffer her, for so many Ages, to be bound by vain Signs of corporal Things, under an erroneous Confidence of their being divine Sacraments."</span> (p 196).<br />
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Prayers from the Prayer Book rite of Baptism resemble Henry's quote from Pope Melchiades (<span style="color: #f1c232;">"In Baptism we are regenerated to Life, after Baptism we are confirmed for the Combat; for Confirmation arms and instructs us against the Agonies of this World"</span>):<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from perishing by water; and also didst safely lead the children of Israel thy people through the Red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy Baptism; and by the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, didst sanctify Water to the mystical washing away of sin: We beseech thee, for thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon this Child; wash him and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost; that he, <b>being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church; and being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life</b>, there to reign with thee world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. . . . </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">WE receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and <b>manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil</b>, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. Amen.</span>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-57602346677118794402018-03-01T22:18:00.002-06:002018-03-01T22:19:51.511-06:00Defence of the Seven Sacraments: Week 2 - The Sacrament of the Altar<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/404379816&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe>
In his treatise <i><a href="http://www.lutherdansk.dk/Web-babylonian%20Captivitate/Martin%20Luther.htm#_Toc58730606">The Babylonian Captivity of the Church</a></i>, Martin Luther wrote:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“I now know for certain that the papacy is the kingdom of Babylon and the power of Nimrod, the mighty hunter (Gen 10:8-9).” </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“All three [sacraments] have been subjected to a miserable captivity by the Roman Curia, and the church has been robbed of her liberty.”</span><br />
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<b>Luther on Communion in one kind:</b> <span style="color: #f1c232;">“2.21 The first captivity of this sacrament, therefore, concerns its substance or completeness, of which we have been deprived by the despotism of Rome. Not that they sin against Christ, who use the one kind, for Christ did not command the use of either kind, but left it to every one's free will, when He said: ‘As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me.’ But they sin who forbid the giving of both kinds to such as desire to exercise this free will.”</span><br />
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<b>Luther on Transubstantiation: </b><span style="color: #f1c232;">“2.23 The second captivity of this sacrament is less grievous so far as the conscience is concerned, yet the very gravest danger threatens the man who would attack it, to say nothing of condemning it.”</span><br />
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He called the term <span style="color: #f1c232;">“a monstrous word and a monstrous idea”</span> and notes that it was not used by the fathers until the philosophy of Aristotle returned about 1200.
For Luther, belief in the corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament is not the issue; the question was about whether the substance of the bread and wine do or do not remain.
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“For my part, if I cannot fathom how the bread is the body of Christ, I will take my reason captive to the obedience of Christ, and clinging simply to His word, firmly believe not only that the body of Christ is in the bread, but that the bread is the body of Christ.”</span><br />
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Luther took an <i>incarnational approach</i> to the Real Presence (later termed “consubstantiation” or Christ present “in, with, and under” the bread and wine).
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“2.36 Therefore it is with the sacrament even as it is with Christ. In order that divinity may dwell in Him, it is not necessary that the human nature be transubstantiated and divinity be contained under its accidents. But both natures are there in their entirety, and it is truly said, This man is God, and This God is man. . . . in order that the real body and the real blood of Christ may be present in the sacrament, it is not necessary that the bread and wine be transubstantiated and Christ be contained under their accidents. But both remain there together.” </span><br />
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<b>Luther on the Mass as Sacrifice and Work: </b><span style="color: #f1c232;">“2.37 The third captivity of this sacrament is that most wicked abuse of all, in consequence of which there is today no more generally accepted and firmly believed opinion in the Church than this – that the mass is a good work and a sacrifice. This abuse has brought an endless host of others in its wake.”</span><br />
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Luther responds that instead of being a sacrifice and work, the Mass is a testament received by faith. It is a sacramental seal of a promise. The Words of institution are there to be meditated upon (not to be used in hushed reverence).
Rome has perverted the sacrament into idolatry.
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“This misery of ours, what is it but a device of Satan to remove every trace of the mass out of the Church? although he is meanwhile at work filling every nook and corner on earth with masses, that is, abuses and mockeries of God's testament, and burdening the world more and more heavily with grievous sins of idolatry, to its deeper condemnation. For what worse idolatry can there be than to abuse God's promises with perverse opinions and to neglect or extinguish faith in them?” . . . “There is no doubt, therefore, that in our day all priests and monks, together with all their bishops and superiors, are idolaters and in a most perilous state, by reason of this ignorance, abuse and mockery of the mass, or sacrament, or testament of God.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“We learn from this that in every promise of God two things are presented to us – the word and the sign – so that we are to understand the word to be the testament, but the sign to be the sacrament. Thus, in the mass, the word of Christ is the testament, and the bread and wine are the sacrament. And as there is greater power in the word than in the sign, so there is greater power in the testament than in the sacrament.” </span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“What godless audacity is it, therefore, when we who are to receive the testament of God come as those who would perform a good work for Him! This ignorance of the testament, this captivity of the sacrament – are they not too sad for tears? When we ought to be grateful for benefits received, we come in our pride to give that which we ought to take, mocking with unheard-of perversity the mercy of the Giver by giving as a work the thing we receive as a gift. So the testator, instead of being the dispenser of His own goods, becomes the recipient of ours. What sacrilege!”</span><br />
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What is the Mass supposed to be about? Luther describes it thus:<br />
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Henry VIII responds in his <i>Defence of the Seven Sacraments</i>:</b><br />
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The Church Fathers were not just emphatic that it is Christ, they were also emphatic that it is no longer bread and wine.<br />
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Luther’s goal is to tear down and rebuild.<br />
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Development of Communion in one kind (by about 1200s):
The main concern was reverence and spillage.<br />
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(1) private domestic Communion, a portion of Eucharistic bread brought home;<br />
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(2) in the Communion of the sick, which was usually the Host alone;
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(3) in the Communion of children, usually under the species of wine alone;<br />
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(4) in the Communion with the Host alone at the Mass of the Presanctified;<br />
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(5) the practice of the <i>intinctio panis, i.e.</i> the dipping of the Host in the Precious Blood and serving it on a spoon.<br />
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(6) Development of Communion outside of (High) Mass as normative<br />
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<i>The Council of Lambeth</i> (1281) directed that wine is to be received by the priest alone, and non-consecrated wine (an ablution cup) is to be received by the faithful.<br />
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<b>Background on the Bohemian Schism: </b>(Luther fled to Bohemia)
The Bohemian Brethren are a link in a chain of sects beginning with Wyclif (1324-84) and coming down to the present day. The ideas of the Englishman found favour with Hus, and Bohemia proved a better soil for their growth than England. Both Wyclif and Hus were moved by a sincere desire to reform the Church of their times; both failed and, without intending it, became the fathers of new heretical bodies — the Lollards and the Hussites. These were forerunners of Protestantism. One of their tenants was insistence on communion under both kinds for salvation (from John 6:53-56 <span style="color: #f1c232;">“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.”</span>)<br />
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The Council of Basle granted (1433) the use of the chalice to the Calixtines of Bohemia under certain conditions, the chief of which was acknowledgment of Christ's integral presence under either kind. This concession, which had never been approved by any pope, was positively revoked in 1462 by the Nuncio Fantini on the order of Pius II.
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Theological issue involved in Communion under one Kind--<b>Concomitance</b>. The Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ form one indivisible Person, and must be found together. That virtue or force which unites the body to the blood, and vice versa, in the Eucharist, is known in Catholic theology under the term concomitance.<br />
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Common Sense Henry retorts:
This is an effort for Luther to turn the laity against the clergy
First Luther laments that a council did not authorize it, then he decries the bishops for not making the reform without a council.
The Fathers and general Christian consent had no problem with it.
Exposes Luther’s contradiction. He says Christ commands it, but then insists that it be a matter of personal liberty.<br />
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If we are supposed to do the Eucharist just like Jesus did it, why stop at insisting on Communion in both kinds. What about . . . children before first communion? Why not always communicate after supper? How can he add water to the wine when there only tradition to support it?
Henry points out how practices evolve in the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and Christian consent (change to morning Mass, to fasting Mass, to communion in one kind).
Luther’s insistence on personal liberty, even to the point of not having to receive communion at Easter, goes too far.<br />
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<b>Transubstantiation</b>—a change of substance? Or a new incarnation?
Luther’s current view is consubstantiation. How do we know that will stay his view. Luther admits his thinking has changed three times already.<br />
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<b>Interpretive Key: </b><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">
“. . . We confess he took Bread, and blessed it; But that he gave Bread to his Disciples, after he had made it his Body, we flatly deny; and the Evangelists do not say he did . . . [Institution narratives] . . . In all these Words of the Evangelists, I see none, where, after the Consecration, the Sacrament is called Bread and Wine; but only Body and Blood. They say, That Christ took Bread in his Hands., which we all confess; but when the Apostles received it, it was not called Bread, but Body. Yet Luther endeavours to rest the Words of the Gospel, by his own Interpretation. Take, eat; this, that is, this Bread, (says he, which he had taken and broken,) is my Body. This is Luther’s Interpretation; not Christ’s Words, nor the Sense of his Words.”</span> (pg 151)
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“As for what Luther argues, or rather trifles, to shew the Simplicity of his own Faith; when of the Wine, Christ does not say, <i>Hoc, est Sanguis meu</i>s, but, <i>Hic, est Sanguis meus</i>: I wonder why it should enter into any Man’s Mind to write thus: For who sees not that this makes Nothing at all for him, nay, rather, does it not make against him? It had seemed more for his Purpose, if Christ had said, <i>Hoc est Sanguis meus</i>: For then he might have had some Colour at least, whereby he might have referred the Article of Demonstrating to the Wine. But now, though Wine is of the neuter Gender; yet Christ did not say <i>Hoc</i>, but <i>Hic est Sanguis meus</i>. And though Bread is of the masculine Gender, yet, notwithstanding, he says, <i>Hoc est Corpus meum</i>, not <i>Hic</i>; that it may appear, by both Articles, that he did not mean to give either Bread or Wine, but his own Body and Blood. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“. . . because Bread and Body are of different Genders in the Latin; he that translated it from the Greek should have joined the Article with <i>Panis</i>, if he had not found that the Evangelical Demonstration was made of the Body. Moreover, when Luther confesseth that the same Difference of Gender is in the Greek, he might easily know that when the Evangelists writ in Greek, they would have put in the Article relating to the Bread, if they had not known our Lord’s Mind; but they were willing to teach the Christians, by the Article relating to the Body, that, in the Communion, Christ did not give Bread to his Disciples, but his Body.” </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">Wherefore, when Luther, to serve his own Turn, interprets the Words of Christ, ‘take, and eat, this is my Body,’ that is, this Bread he had taken; not I, but Christ himself teacheth us to understand the Contrary, to wit, That what was given them, and seemed to be Bread, was not Bread, but his own Body; if the Evangelists have rightly delivered us the Words of Christ: For otherwise he should say, not <i>Hoc</i>, that it might be expounded for <i>Hic</i>, but, more properly, <i>Hic Panis est Corpus meum</i>: By which Saying he might teach his Disciples, what Luther now teaches to the whole Church, to wit, That in the Eucharist the Body of Christ, and the Bread are together. But our Saviour spoke after that Manner, that he might plainly manifest, that only his Body is in the Sacrament, and no Bread.”</span> (pg 152-153)<br />
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<b>In other words, Jesus knew what he was talking about, and we have his plain words!</b><br />
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<b>What is in a word?</b> Luther says, <span style="color: #f1c232;">‘This Doctrine of Transubstantiation, is risen in the Church within these three Hundred Years; whereas before, for above twelve Hundred Years, from Christ’s Birth, the Church had true Faith: Yet all this while was there not any Mention made of this prodigious (as he calls it) Word Transubstantiation.’ </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">If he strives thus only about the Word, I suppose none will trouble him to believe Transubstantiation; if he will but believe, that the Bread is changed into the Flesh, and the Wine into the Blood; and that Nothing remains of the Bread and Wine but the Species; which, in one Word, is the Meaning of those who put in the Word Transubstantiation.
Henry goes into a series of proofs from the Fathers: Hugo of St Victor, Eusebius, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Theophilus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan.
Henry contends that no Fathers would have made use of the metaphor of the iron and fire for the Real Presence.
Pg 158 “That Opinion of Luther is therefore false, as it is against the public Faith, not only of this Time, but also of all Ages: Nor does he free from Captivity those who believe him; but, drawing them from the Liberty of Faith, that is, from a safe Hold, (as he himself confesses) he captivates them, leading them into a Precipice, into inaccessible, uncertain, doubtful and dangerous Ways: And he that loves Danger, shall perish therein.”</span> (pg 155)<br />
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Luther <span style="color: #f1c232;">“examines the Lord’s Supper, and ponders the Words which Christ used in the Institution of the Sacrament of the Mass: And, having found in them the Word Testament, (as if a Thing very obscure,) he begins to triumph, as though he had conquered his Enemies”</span> (pg 159).<br />
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On page 162, Henry educates us: Christ is our great high priest who offers the eternal sacrifice for us and he has given us this memorial to proclaim his death (<i>i.e.</i>, sacrifice) until his return.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“If Luther should argue that the Priest cannot offer, because Christ did not offer in his Supper, let him remember his own Words, That a Testament involves in it the Death of the Testator; therefore has no Force or Power, nor is in its full Perfection; till the Testator be dead. Wherefore, not only those Things which Christ did first at his Supper, do belong to the Testament, but also his Oblation on the Cross: For on the Cross he consummated the Sacrifice which he began in the Supper: And therefore the Commemoration of the whole Thing, to wit, of the Consecration in the Supper, and the Oblation on the Cross, is celebrated, and represented together in the Sacrament of the Mass; so that it is, the Death that is more truly represented than the Supper. And therefore, the Apostle, when writing to the Corinthians, in these Words, As often as ye shall eat this Bread, and drink this Cup, adds, not the Supper of our Lord, but ye shall declare our Lord’s Death.”</span> (Pg 163).<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“And if Christ did any Work, I am certain none will doubt of its being a good Work: For if the Woman, who poured the Ointment upon his Head, wrought a good Work in that, who doubts of his performing a good Work, when he gave his Body for our Nourishment, and offered it in Sacrifice to God? If this cannot be denied, unless by him who intends to trifle in so serious a Matter, neither can it also be denied that the Priest worketh a good Work in the Mass; seeing that in the Mass he does nothing else but what Christ did in his last Supper, and on the Cross; for this is declared in Christ’s own Words, Do this in Commemoration of me.”</span> (Pg 165)<br />
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<b>Luther vs the Fathers </b><span style="color: #f1c232;"> “It is a Wonder that, of so many holy Fathers, of so many Eyes which have read the Gospel in the Church for so many Ages, none was ever so quick-sighted, as to perceive a Thing so apparent; and that at this present Time they are all so blind, as not to discern what Luther (though he points it out with his Finger,) brags so clearly to see himself! Is not Luther rather mistaken, and thinks himself to see something, which in Reality he sees not, or endeavours to shew us with his Finger, that which is no-where to be found? For pray what Sort of Proof is that where he undertakes to teach ‘that Mass is no Sacrifice, because it is a Promise;’ as if Promise and Sacrifice were as repugnant together as Heat and Cold?”
</span>
Pg 169<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“I suppose that none will believe him, unless he first shews that he has read another Gospel different from that the holy Fathers ever read, or that in reading the same, he has been more diligent than they, or has better understood it; or finally, that he is more careful about Faith, than ever any Man before him was.” </span><br />
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<b>Conclusion:</b> if Luther has his way, the use of the Sacrament of the Altar will shrivel up in the common practice of the Lutheran faith, and that’s exactly what we saw in the rise of pietism—Word to the neglect of Sacrament. <br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">“These are the excellent Promises of Luther; this is that spacious Liberty he promises to all those who forsake the Catholic Church to follow him, <i>viz.</i> That they may be freed at last from the Use and Faith of the Sacrament!”</span> (Pg 172).Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-77521195245676907782018-02-27T17:45:00.004-06:002018-02-27T17:49:04.977-06:00Defence of the Seven Sacraments: Week 1 - Introduction<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/400871943&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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King Henry VIII is an enigma. He was not supposed to the King, but the Archbishop of Canterbury. Tudor dynasty was young and shaky, a male heir would make it secure. He has theological training, devout, attended Mass usually multiple times a day, regular confessor, made pilgrimage, creeped to the cross on Good Friday, fought Protestantism, given title “Defender of the Faith”, died with the host on his tongue . . . and yet . . . he carried on an affair with the Boleyns (product of the church in his time), was willing to use absolute power (executions), was weak-willed, was very lustful, began young and vigorous but then likely suffered from syphilis and diabetes, dissolved the monasteries and gave their property to the nobility, broke up the communion of the church in the West, and promoted and fostered Protestantism.<br />
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<b><i>From Belloc's chapter on Henry: </i></b><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"Though so much else was at work, it will be seen that if Henry had not weakly allowed himself to be captured by Anne Boleyn, and then allowed himself to be pushed into the extreme position of breaking with the Papacy rather than disappoint the woman who had infatuated him, England would be Catholic to-day; and if England had remained Catholic the Reformation elsewhere would certainly have died out. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"He it was who started the ball rolling. He did not intend the results which ultimately followed, nor even the results which followed immediately within his own lifetime, still less the results which followed after his death. It was a passionate, foolish, ill-considered blunder — and was a very good example of the truth that evil comes upon the world through men's blind sins much more than through their calculation. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">" . . . even for the betrothal it was necessary to get a dispensation from the Pope of the day, Julius II, because Catherine had been (nominally at least) the wife of the boy's brother. It was a disputed point among theologians whether the Pope could or could not give a dispensation for marriage with a deceased brother's wife; morally, of course, it did not matter in this case because the marriage between young Prince Arthur and' Catherine had only been a nominal one, but the point was to prove of enormous importance in the future. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">" . . . Now let me describe the character of this young fellow, upon whom so much was to depend. His leading characteristic was an inability to withstand impulse; he was passionate for having his own way — which is almost the opposite of having strength of will. He was easily dominated, always being managed by one person or another in succession, from this beginning of his fife to the end of it, but being managed — not bullied or directly controlled. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"It is exceedingly important to understand this chief point about him because a misjudgment of it has warped much the greater part of historical appreciation upon him. Because he was a big man who blustered and had fits of rage and was exaggeratedly eager to follow appetite and whim he had been given the false appearance of a powerful figure. Power he had, but it was only the political power which the mood of the time gave to whoever might be monarch. He had no personal power of character. He did not control others by their respect for his tenacity, still less by any feeling that he was wise and just and still less by any feeling that he was of strong fiber. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"On the contrary, all those who managed him, one after the other — except his wife — despised him, and soon came to carry on as though they could do what they liked on condition that they flattered him. They managed public affairs while he followed his appetites or private interests. That was true of the whole series of those who "ran" him: Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, and, at the end, his brother-in-law Seymour. The only exception was that admirable wife of his who, through the simplicity of her character and her strong affection as well as from her sense of duty, treated him with respect. But her influence over him was, perhaps on that very account, soon lost. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"As might be expected with a nature of this kind, he revolted against each manager one after the other. He felt he was being "run" by each in turn, grew peevish about it, had explosions of anger and would in a fit of passion get rid of them. Getting rid of them often meant, under the despotic conditions of that day, putting them to death. That is how he suddenly broke with Wolsey, that is how he broke with Anne Boleyn, that is how he broke with Thomas Cromwell — who had all three done what they willed with him, acting independently of him, showing their contempt for him in private and ultimately rousing his fury. Every woman (except his first wife Catherine) with whom he had to deal treated him pretty soon with contempt, and that is a most significant test of a man's value. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">" . . . though he was intelligent, in the sense of being able to follow a logical process clearly or to draw up a consecutive plan or to analyse intellectual propositions such as are presented by theological or political discussion, he was a bad judge of men. He could see indeed well enough that this man or that was working hard and producing results, but he blundered badly whenever he tried to frame a foreign policy for himself; also he was very hesitant — perhaps because he half consciously recognized his incompetence in dealing with a complicated situation. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"He would put off a decision, advance towards a certain end and then draw back, half determining to give up objects towards which he was bent, and the main lines of action during his reign were always undertaken by somebody else. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"It was Wolsey who conducted his early foreign policy entirely; it was Cromwell who later worked his breach with Rome; it was Seymour who, at the end of his life, determined what sort of will he should leave and how the succession to his throne should be arranged. He was emotional after a fashion, and especially sensitive to music; he was even a good practical musician himself and something of a poet and he composed a few songs which are not without merit, as well as other set pieces of harmony, notably two Masses to which are given his name but which are perhaps from his own hand. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"He was very vain — vain of his looks, and of his athletics in early life; exceedingly touchy about his dignity and his majesty as a King. His feelings were here in comic contrast with the way in which he was always being got the better of by other people, until the moment when the regular explosion against their control arrived. It was this vanity which made him fall a victim to more than one woman, but it also prevented his being completely infatuated by them save in the one case of Anne Boleyn. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f1c232;">" . . . he did have a fixed emotional attachment to the practices of the Faith, and he never got out of what may be called the atmosphere of these practices. He had a constant devotion to the Sacrament of the Altar and no little of his severity appeared in his treatment of anyone who denied the Real Presence. He insisted on the celibacy of the clergy, on the maintenance of full ritual in the liturgy and all ecclesiastical discipline under the episcopacy, which he formally maintained."</span><br />
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1491—Henry Tudor is born; as the second-born son, he is prepared for a career in the Church.<br />
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1502—Arthur, Prince of Wales, dies, leaving Henry Tudor as the heir to the throne of England.<br />
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1504—Henry VII, still desiring a Spanish alliance, arranges a marriage between his son and Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon; though Catharine swore that her marriage had not been consummated, an additional papal dispensation of affinity (see Leviticus 18:16) is sought to remove all doubt regarding the legitimacy of the marriage; Pope Julius II grants the dispensation.<br />
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1509—Henry VIII, becomes king after the death of his father, Henry VII.<br />
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1515—Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, is made a Cardinal by the pope and Lord Chancellor of England by the king.<br />
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1517—Martin Luther nails his “95 Theses” debating indulgences on the church door at Wittenberg; the Protestant Reformation begins.<br />
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1520—Martin Luther writes his essay “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” his most hostile treatment of the papacy (labeling the pope the “antichrist”) and the Catholic teaching on the sacraments. <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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1521—Henry VIII publishes his treatise “Defence of the Seven Sacraments” as a rebuttal of Luther’s “Babylonian Captivity.” King Henry receives the title “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X for his work.<br />
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1522—Martin Luther writes his reply to King Henry VIII. In this year, Henry begins an affair with Mary Boleyn.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
1525—At the entreaty of Christian, King of Denmark, Luther apologizes to Henry. The King also becomes interested in an annulment of his marriage and begins pursuing Anne Boleyn.<br />
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1526—Sir Thomas More writes a reply to Luther’s response to Henry VIII, entitled “Vindicatio Henrici VIII. a calumniis Lutheri” by “Gulielmus Rosseus.”<br />
<br />
1529—Henry VIII dismisses Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor for failing to obtain the Pope’s annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon; Sir Thomas More appointed Lord Chancellor; Henry VIII summons the “Reformation Parliament” which begins to cut ties with the Church of Rome.<br />
<br />
1530—Cardinal Wolsey dies; the “Reformation Parliament” reinstates præmunire charges, outlawing legal appeals to the Roman Curia; reformer William Tyndale is executed; his final words are, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”<br />
<br />
1532—The “Reformation Parliament” curtails church taxes sent abroad to Rome; Sir Thomas More resigns over the question of Henry VIII’s annulment.<br />
<br />
1533—All legal appeals to Rome are outlawed by the “Reformation Parliament”; the Boleyn family chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and grants the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon; Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn and is excommunicated by Pope Clement VII.<br />
<br />
1534—The “Reformation Parliament” passes the Act of Supremacy: as no foreign bishop has jurisdiction within the realm, Henry VIII is declared the “supreme head” of the Church of England.<br />
<br />
1535—Sir Thomas More and John Cardinal Fisher, Bishop Rochester, are beheaded for failing to take the Oath of Supremacy.<br />
<br />
1536—Concluding the “Reformation Parliament,” all papal authority in England is outlawed; Anne Boleyn is beheaded; Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour; the dissolution of monasteries in England begins under the direction of Thomas Cromwell and is completed in 1539.<br />
<br />
1537—Jane Seymour dies after bearing a son, the future King Edward VI.<br />
<br />
1539—Parliament passes the king’s “Six Articles” of Religion, outlawing Protestant religious opinions on key issues; Glastonbury Abbey is dissolved; the buildings are torched and looted by the king’s men.<br />
<br />
1540—Henry VIII marries Anne of Cleves following negotiations by Thomas Cromwell; as it was not consummated, Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves is annulled and he marries Catherine Howard; Thomas Cromwell executed on charge of treason.<br />
<br />
1542—Catherine Howard is executed.<br />
<br />
1543—Henry VIII marries Catherine Parr; alliance forms between Henry and Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor) against Scotland and France.<br />
<br />
1544—The first liturgical texts in English are issued (the only ones issued in Henry’s reign); the Exhortation and Litany were composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.<br />
<br />
1547—Henry dies; under the Act of Succession, his sole surviving son, becomes King Edward VI; as he is too young to rule (nine years old), Edward Seymor acts as Lord Protector of the Realm.<br />
<br />
1548—Archbishop Thomas Cranmer introduces an English communion rite, to be inserted in the Latin Mass just before receiving Communion.<br />
<br />
1549—The first Book of Common Prayer, mostly written by Cranmer, is issued and its use is required in all English churches; resistance comes from Cornwall.<br />
<br />
1552—A new Prayer Book, revised along Protestant lines, is issued.<br />
<br />
1553—Upon the death of Edward VI, Henry’s first daughter Mary is crowned Queen of England; she restores both the Latin liturgy and communion with the Church of Rome.<br />
<br />
1558—Upon the death of Mary I, Henry’s second daughter Elizabeth (by Anne Boleyn) is crowned Queen of England; papal jurisdiction is denied, the Queen being proclaimed “Supreme Governor” of the English Church, and the Prayer Book is restored.<br />
<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">"<i>Whose Sins ye forgive, shall be forgiven unto them, and whosoever Sins ye retain, shall be retained</i>. (Jn 20:22). By which Words, if it is manifest that any Priest has Power to absolve Men from Sins, and take away eternal Punishment due thereunto; who will not judge it ridiculous, that the Prince of all Priests should be denied the taking away of temporal Punishment?"</span>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-21927255821517637132018-02-27T14:04:00.003-06:002018-03-06T11:56:59.221-06:00Joining things<i>An inexpansive free verse.</i><br />
<br />
I tried to join the Masons because it was free<br />
But then I discovered I had to buy my apron.<br />
(I didn’t know they baked their own bricks.)<br />
The Communist party looked good at first,<br />
But in the end, there were too many red flags.<br />
I didn’t have enough pride to join the Lion’s Club.<br />
I was too much of a square to join the Rotary Club.<br />
I was a little too ordinary to be one of the Odd Fellows.<br />
Should I lodge with the Moose or the Elk?<br />
As a hunter, I was accustomed to shooting them both.<br />
I was getting a little too old for the YMCA.<br />
It turns out the Red Men were just a bunch of white guys.<br />
The Knights of Columbus only held daytime meetings.<br />
I had more in common with the emcees than the Jaycees.<br />
I figured I didn’t really wanna be in Kiwanis.<br />
(Plus, I didn’t have the key to the club anyway.)<br />
When I just couldn’t decide what I wanted to be,<br />
I figured I was content being little old me.
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-50929963908820326672017-11-13T16:16:00.002-06:002017-11-13T21:55:08.345-06:00ACNA, Part 1: the Bishops<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wanted to collect some thoughts on the issue in light of the recent conclusion of the theological study and it's consideration by the bishops. It may be useful to you as well. I initially did a column in my parish's Sunday bulletin, and I also did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcPeEkuwqsQ">a video version on Youtube</a>. These are further thoughts. To begin, <a href="http://www.anglicanchurch.net/?/main/page/1519">here is the bishops' statement</a> of September 7, 2017:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></i></span>
<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Having gratefully received and thoroughly considered the five-year study
by the Theological Task Force on Holy Orders, we acknowledge that there
are differing principles of ecclesiology and hermeneutics that are
acceptable within Anglicanism that may lead to divergent conclusions
regarding women’s ordination to the priesthood. However, we also
acknowledge that this practice is a recent innovation to Apostolic
Tradition and Catholic Order. We agree that there is insufficient
scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as
standard practice throughout the Province. However, we continue to
acknowledge that individual dioceses have constitutional authority to
ordain women to the priesthood.</span></span></i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I was pleasantly surprised by the statement. It was far more than I was expecting (I was expecting a total white-wash). And yet, here they go on record with the acknowledgement that the Scriptural support for this innovation is lacking and that the only justification for it is our own man-made church law.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But I have been disappointed by the responses of various traditionalist groups about the bishops' statement. The reason is that they all seem to fall for a distraction, focusing on the canons of ACNA and the task of amending them to make the male presbyterate the standard throughout the province. <span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Focusing one's energies on the legislative process at this point seems to me to be a great mistake.</b></span></span> It's a fruitless endeavor, a non-starter. Or more accurately, it's the wrong place to start. The real place to start is with the bishops. <span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="color: #ffd966;"><b>It's all about the bishops.</b></span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b><span style="color: #ffd966;">Case in point: the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.</span> </b></span>This diocese became (in)famous for being one of the last holdouts when it came to the ordination of women spreading as a standard practice throughout the dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the 1980s. One by one, dioceses began the practice. But not Fort Worth (and neither Quincy nor San Joaquin). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It may surprise you to learn that in all that time, there was discussion about the issue in the diocese, but no motions on the convention floor to change the canons to allow for the ordination of women. Why? Simply because there was never any canon that prohibited it in the first place. It was never a problem that had to be addressed by canons. There's still no canon prohibiting the ordination of women in Fort Worth. <b>Because it's all about the bishops.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's true that there was never a majority of popular support among the diocesan clergy and laity for such an innovation in Holy Orders, but then there wasn't in Dallas either when Donis Patterson was elected bishop in 1983. Helen Parmley reported in the <i>Dallas Morning News</i> that a survey done by the search committee to elect a new bishop for
Dallas in 1983 indicated that most of the laity in the diocese wanted their new bishop
to take negative stands on the ordination of women, charismatic
renewal, and homosexual ministries. Donis Patterson ordained female priests in Dallas. While over on the Fort Worth side, Donald Davies, Clarence Pope, and Jack Iker did not. Again, it's all about the bishops.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>It's all about the bishops</b> because they are the ones charged with the responsibility above all to guard the faith, order, and unity of the Catholic Church. Their role is to teach the truth and to expose and drive away error (and the practices it leads to). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ffd966;"><b>What needs to happen in ACNA</b></span> is for the bishops to first exercise their role as teachers of the faith. There needs to be a moratorium on the practice put in place. <b>No canonical changes are needed, because it's all about the bishops. They are the ones who ordain or don't ordain.</b> The rest of us are only to call them to faithfulness <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">in</span> their teaching responsibility.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If a moratorium is not doable, then <b>at least a minority of the bishops and the dioceses that engage in the aberrant practice could be contained in a sub-province of ACNA with it's own standards and practices</b>. The ACNA would be faithful to scripture and the apostolic tradition. It would be a church, and a church in communion with itself. It would also have a sub-province of Christians in the Anglican way who (like Apollos) can be taught the whole council of God and nurtured in the tradition of the ancient Fathers.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After 5 or 10 years, most of the female clergy (less than 1% of the total clergy in ACNA) will be retiring anyway. Even without a moratorium, new ordinands are trending more and more male. So in time, it will become more and more of a non-issue in a practical sense. But the important part is for the bishops to come to a common mind. Again, it's all about the bishops.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then, when it's clearly a thing of the past, the constitution and canons can be cleaned up at a provincial assembly.</span></span>
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-65283014192628672012017-05-07T21:06:00.003-05:002017-05-07T21:06:39.918-05:00Considering the Benedict OptionI'm still not sure about the wisdom of the approach. It's basically about whether engagement with the world or riding out the storm is the better approach. I need more digestion of these ideas, but I'm glad we're having the conversation.<br />
<br />
<span><span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><a href="http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/the-benedict-option-what-does-it-really-mean">This article</a> from <i>Crisis</i> Magazine is a very good argument in favor of the Benedict Option. The term was inspired by the last line of this passage from Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue":</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #f1c232;">“A crucial turning point in . . . history occurred when men</span></span><span style="color: #f1c232;"><span><span>
and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the
Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and
moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set
themselves to achieve instead—often not recognizing fully what they were
doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the
moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might
survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our
moral condition is correct [one characterized by moral incoherence and
unsettlable moral disputes in the modern world], we ought to conclude
that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What
matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community
within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be
sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if
the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last
dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time
however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have
already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of
consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are
waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St.
Benedict.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-27509184440671977512017-04-02T01:15:00.002-05:002017-04-02T01:15:33.089-05:00Our Mission to Muslims, Week 5A question and answer follow up with Jay Smith on his presentation on Islam.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Unz-SqS2pA" width="400"></iframe>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-84182068276343307902017-03-25T19:27:00.004-05:002017-03-25T19:27:58.288-05:00Our Mission to Muslims, Week 4This week, we watched the video below of apologist Jay Smith examining how the Qur'an and Muhammad hold up in the light of critical scholarship.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fMJRsd8SrhU" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
The BBC documentary from Tom Holland's work that Jay Smith referenced is below.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zzKk0L6H1ms" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
The audio version of Tom Holland's book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Sword-Birth-Global-Empire/dp/0307473651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490487993&sr=1-1&keywords=in+the+shadow+of+the+sword"><i>In the Shadow of the Sword</i></a> is below.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/smkusYsE4DE" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyW7IS0Y1og" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y22v-d4KJyQ" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0sd3gITTahU" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-28845530842570578592017-03-25T19:13:00.004-05:002017-03-25T19:13:42.995-05:00Our Mission to Muslims, Week 3<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>The Muslim view of God</b></span></span><br />
<br />
The substance of Islamic theology is summed up in six articles of faith: Belief in Allah as the one true God, belief in Angels, belief in Scriptures (Taurat, Gospel and Quran), belief in the Prophets, belief in the Day of Judgment, and belief in God's predestination. There is a Friday Sabbath and Muslims observe Jewish dietary laws. Muslims have a fatalistic outlook on history. They believe that Allah dictated everything that will happen and that history unfolds accordingly. This comes from the Muslim’s view of God’s absolute sovereignty.<br />
<br />
The <i>Shahada</i> is the central profession of faith (<span style="color: #f1c232;">“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet”</span>). The praise <i>Allahu-Akbar</i> (“God is great!”) is central to prayer. Allah is the Arabic name for “God,” although in pre-Isalmic Arabia, Allah was the name of the god of the moon (one of many idols, Al-ilah or “THE god”) who was married to the sun goddess and had three daughters who were stars. Muslims deny that Allah was originally a pagan deity within a pantheon and assert that Allah was originally viewed as the one God of Abraham and that early monotheism was corrupted by polytheism and later restored by Muhammad.<br />
<br />
"Say, He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him" (Surah 112:1-4). Islam asserts that God is one, eternal, absolute, and utterly transcendent. He is not a trinity, does not have a son, and there is none like him. Allah created all things and the purpose of life is to worship him. He is personal, but not intimate. God is utterly holy and just, who punishes us for our sins. He is also gracious and merciful and forgiving, but does not have feelings toward mankind (including love—the idea that “God is love” is foreign to the Muslim mind). Allah offers salvation based on repentance and good works. He has mercy if the good outweighs the bad on the scales at Judgment Day, but even then, salvation is deterministic—he saves whom he saves and damns whom he damns. Allah wills everything that happens. Sin is not really cleansed or pardoned as much as overlooked. Allah is to be worshiped and feared as served as a master.<br />
<br />
Allah created man from a blood clot and he also created angels. These messengers do not have free will. They serve as the intermediaries between God and man. There are no formal clergy (imam is the one who leads the prayers), but some imams are paid teachers.<br />
<br />
Jinn are creatures who are hidden fire spirits. They have physical form, angelic abilities, and free will. Iblis is the Arabic word for “Satan.” In Islam, he is not a fallen angel, but a jinn.<br />
<br />
Islam teaches that all of God's prophets preached the message of Islam—submission to the will of God. The Quran mentions the names of numerous figures considered prophets in Islam, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Isa is the Arabic version of “Jesus” in Greek or “Joshua” in Hebrew. He is seen as a prophet, not the Son of God. He was Virgin-born of Mary, was sinless, did healings and other miracles, did not die on the cross, was assumed into heaven and will return at the Day of Judgment. Both Jesus and Mary are highly esteemed.<br />
<br />
Islam teaches the general resurrection of the dead at Judgment Day. Muslims believe all mankind will be judged on their good and bad deeds and consigned to <i>Jannah</i> (paradise) or <i>Jahannam</i> (hell).<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Who is Muhammad?</span></b></span><br />
<br />
Muslims believe in the prophets of the Bible (and believe Jesus was one of them) and see Muhammad as the final prophet. “Peace be upon him” is an expression of reverence that Muslims will always use about God’s prophets, and especially about Muhammad.<br />
<br />
Muhammad was born in 570 in Mecca into the <i>Quraysh</i> tribe, which ruled the city and served as custodians of the <i>Ka’abah</i>. The branch of the family Muhammad was born into was impoverished. His father died before Muhammad was born and his mother died when he was six. The orphan first went to live with wealthy grandparents, then a wealthy uncle, then to a poor uncle. Many of his family never accepted him as a prophet.<br />
<br />
His first visions were in his youth. He claimed an angel has opened his stomach, stirred his innards, and sealed him back up. He worked in the caravan trade and gained a reputation for being trustworthy. At 25, he met and married a wealthy Christian widow of 40 named <i>Khadija</i> and began a life of leisure. In 610, Muhammad was visited at by Gabriel in a cave who called on him to “recite.” He doubted the authenticity of the experience, but his wife encouraged him to pursue his call as a prophet. Muhammad asserted the claim of his family deity Allah to be not just the supreme god of the pantheon, but the only God. He called himself a prophet to appeal to Jews and an apostle to appeal to Christians. He found his audience hostile. Merchants felt that this undermining of the pagan deities at the <i>Ka’abah</i> was bad for business. At first he modified his preaching to appeal to the <i>Quraysh</i> by saying that Allah’s daughters could be worshiped as well. This concession to pagans was later rescinded and claimed that it was not a true revelation from Allah, but from Satan (hence, the “Satanic verses”).<br />
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Muhammad’s first wife died in 619 and growing hostility forced him to flee to Medina in 622. This is the <i>Hijra</i> (migration) and the beginning of the Muslim era. On the way, Muhammad preached to the jinns and converted them. He turned to raiding caravans and found Jews to be lucrative targets. His Muslim band defeated the <i>Quraysh</i> at the Battle of Badr. After some setbacks and more attacks, he conquered the city of Mecca in 630 and cleansed the <i>Ka’abah</i> of idols and made it the center of Muslim worship. Muhammad was poisoned by a Jewish woman and died in 632, and without having provided for a successor.<br />
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Although the Qur’an forbids more than 4 wives, Muhammad married 22 times. He had two sons who died in infancy and four daughter, only one of which (Fatima) outlived him. She was revered as one of the greatest women who ever lived. Muhammad's marriages after the death of <i>Khajida</i> were contracted mostly for political or humanitarian reasons. The women were either widows of Muslims killed in battle and had been left without a protector, or belonged to important families or clans whom it was necessary to honor and strengthen alliances with. Most controversial was Aisha who was 6 when betrothed and 9 when the marriage was consummated. She became known as Muhammad's favorite wife in Sunni tradition, survived him by decades and was instrumental in helping assemble the scattered sayings of Muhammad that form the Hadith literature for the Sunni branch of Islam.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>What is the Qur’an?</b></span></span><br />
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Muslims have three sources of doctrine and practice:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>1. The Qur’an </b></span>(or sometimes “Koran”) is the sacred scripture. The word means “recitation.” The Muslim view of scripture is not the same as Christian. We believe in the inspiration of the Bible by God. Muslims believe in the dictation of Allah’s words to Muhammad through the angel <i>Jibreel </i>(Gabriel). They believe there is an “original” copy in heaven and that the earthly dictation corresponds exactly.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">2. The Sunna</span></b> is the collection of written tradition from the time of Muhammad. It is composed of several volumes of Hadith ( “stories”) which are the sayings and biographical stories of Muhammad that are not the dictated recitations from God. They are the next standard for doctrine and practice among Sunnis (less for Shi’ites).<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">3. <i>Ijma</i> </span></b>is the sacred tradition, deemed authoritative only by Sunnis, and not by Shi’ites. It is the consensus of imams, commentators, and legal scholars of Sharia.<br />
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The Qur’an is written in units of chapters and verses. The 114 chapters (called Surah) are numbered and also have names (like “The Cow”, “The Jinn”, “Clots of Blood”) which are arranged from longest to shortest, rather than in any chronological or narrative order.<br />
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Roughly speaking, the surahs from the first half of the Qur’an are the later revelations from Medina, when Muhammad had risen to power and deal with government and ethics. The more violent passages occur here (Surah 9 most of all). The earlier revelations from Mecca, where Muhammad was powerless and persecuted, occur are placed in the second half of the Qur’an. The more peaceful passages occur here. They talk about judgment and doctrine.<br />
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Muslims believe that God gave revelation before the Qur’an (i.e., the Torah and Gospel), but it was corrupted, and the revelations given to Muhammad sets the record straight. The Qur’an does not have much narrative like the Bible, but is a chaotic collection of sayings and stories with many contradictions. The Islamic view of revelation has the principle of abrogation when dealing with conflicting revelation—later verses always cancel out the earlier ones, even within the Qur’an (e.g., Surah 2:106 - <span style="color: #f1c232;">“If We abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We will replace it by a better one or one similar. Did you not know that God has power over all things?”</span> c.f., Hebrews 13:8 – <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.”</span> ).<br />
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Curiously, although the Islam asserts that Christians and Jews have distorted God’s revelation, the Qur’an testifies to the veracity of the Bible itself and even says to go to the Christians and Jews for help to understand God’s revelations. <span style="color: #f1c232;">“If you doubt what We have revealed to you, ask those who have read the Scriptures</span> [i.e., the Bible] <span style="color: #f1c232;">before you. The truth has come to you from your Lord: therefore do not doubt it”</span> (Surah 10:94). Also, Surah 4:136 commands the Muslim to <span style="color: #f1c232;">“have faith in God and His apostle, in the book He has revealed to his apostle, and in the Scriptures He formerly revealed.”</span> It instructs the Muslim not to argue with the Christians, but to simply assert that God has added to his former revelation.<br />
<br />Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-1352752188885839032017-03-14T00:25:00.000-05:002017-03-14T01:18:01.962-05:00Altar Guild talk on Sacred Space<iframe width="100%" height="250" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/312272538&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe><br />
<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Creation of Paradise</span></b><br />
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To my mind, the best image to illustrate God’s creation is the reliquary. It is so beautiful, we might be forgiven for missing the point. It is only a beautiful display case for something more important. It is a means of setting apart what lies within for special veneration.<br />
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God created the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon and stars in their courses. He separated the dry lands from the seas, and brought forth life upon the earth.
Genesis 2:8 – <span style="color: #f1c232;">“And the Lord God <i>planted</i> a garden in the East, in Eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed.”</span><br />
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This vast reliquary was a magnificent way to carve out a sacred place for the creature that bore most uniquely the image of the Creator.<br />
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<i>The Garden of Eden by Thomas Cole </i><br />
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God has created this sacred space as a dwelling-place for both the human and the divine. They walked together in fellowship in the garden in the cool of the day. The garden was a place of man’s priestly labor—Adam was to tend the garden (Gen 2:15), to cultivate the place where heaven and earth overlapped. Eden was sacred space. It is no wonder that temples throughout the ancient world were richly decorated with images of the garden. The very word “paradise” comes from the Persian term for a walled garden.<br />
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(I'm heavily indebted to Andrew Gould for his post about gardens in this section.)<br />
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The vision of paradise as an idyllic walled garden is exceedingly ancient and universal. For thousands of years, palaces have been built around courtyard gardens, and the ancient kings lived out their reigns in an artificial landscape of ideal beauty – an icon of the natural world transfigured into paradise.<br />
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There is a very old belief that any garden represents a restoration of Eden, and from the earliest times palace gardens have specifically imitated certain characteristics of Eden. The garden was always square. A fountain at the center poured forth water into four channels that radiated outward in the cardinal directions – an image of the four rivers of paradise referenced in Genesis 2:10-14. It is the preeminent image of human longing.<br />
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The Bible begins in a garden and it ends with a garden. The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 is the ideal joining of garden and city, where all things being restored, heaven and earth again overlap and God and man walk together in fellowship once more in the cool of the day. In the New Jerusalem, there is a walled city, a river of life issuing from the throne as it was in Eden. There are fruit bearing trees which bring life and healing to the nations. This is God’s image of how he intended life to be lived. The garden is more than a place; it is also a way of life and a state of the soul.<br />
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Is it any wonder that at the climax of the salvation story, we again find the setting of a garden. Jesus agonizes with his vocation in the Garden of Gethsemane, choosing to embrace the chalice of suffering. And at the end of his passion, he is laid to rest in a tomb in a garden. And the garden is where he first sets foot in his resurrected body.<br />
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The garden includes water and plants, but what makes it different from pure nature is the cultivation. Nature is harnessed and brought into order. This is reminiscent of the work of creation where things like earth and sea are cleanly divided. The wall is just as much an important feature as the vegetation. Although no wall is explicitly mentioned in Genesis 2, the very fact that an angel guards the way back into paradise implies the existence of a barrier and a gateway.<br />
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Ancient temples and palaces had their gardens, reminiscent of the ancient walled paradise where all was right with the world. It is no surprise then that churches would have their own ancient custom of the garden courtyard. The first house churches were in homes that had a central courtyard as one of the basic architectural features (think Abuello’s).<br />
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In our diocese, St. Vincent’s cathedral has a central courtyard that has been increasingly cultivated in recent years. Holy Apostles in Fort Worth was built with this tradition of a courtyard in mind. The courtyard here at St. Alban’s is feeling more and more garden-like. It is an architectural feature that might often be missed or sometimes eliminated because of added expense, but one that I would argue holds an important place in the layout of the church building. We don’t see it often in this part of the world, but it is also a garden of rest for the departed.<br />
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To enter through the churchyard lychgate is to pass into a different world. To walk through the gardens to church amongst the resting places of the faithful departed is to begin the joyous ascent up the mountain to meet our Lord who sits enthroned in the New Jerusalem.<br />
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In desert countries, the ancient church gardens have a marvelous separation from the surrounding landscape. A monastery in Egypt or Palestine is like an ark of paradise moored in the ocean of dry sand. In ancient times, Byzantine churches always had forecourts, and these contained fountains where the faithful washed themselves before entering. After a long journey through a landscape of desolation, we see palms rising above the high walls. Inside are flowers and birds and fragrant smells.<br />
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Even in countries with more verdant climates, the separation of the church gardens from the surroundings was considered very important. Whether by a high wall, or merely a fence with a gate, a church’s grounds were always set apart from the fallen world, and all within would radiate with the beauty of life.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Trees of the Patriarchs </b></span><br />
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One of the main features of the garden the Bible mentions are the trees within it. Genesis 2:8-9, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he has formed. And out of the ground, the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."</span><br />
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There is a tree of life in Eden (as there are such trees of life-giving fruit in the paradise of the New Jerusalem) and there is a tree of knowledge. Is it any wonder then that after man’s expulsion from paradise, the first place we find sacred space coming back into the scene is under the shade of a large tree? Of all places, the whisper of God would be best heard under a tree.<br />
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Pay attention to the first reading at Mass tomorrow morning. Abram is called by God in Genesis 12 to pick up roots in Haran and head out West to a land of promise. He went with his family, not knowing exactly where to go, but knowing that God would let him know when he got there. Where does Abram stop? Where does God speak to him in the promised land? <br />
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When Abram entered Canaan, his family stopped at Shechem. There, at a sacred terebinth tree—called the Oak of Moreh—we are told that Abram encounters God again. Now before, we are only told that the Lord “said” something to Abram. Now, Abram not only <i>hears</i>, but <i>sees</i> the God who called him to travel West.
Genesis 12:7-8 – <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Then the LORD <i>appeared</i> to Abram, and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. . . . and there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the Name of the LORD.’”</span> This expression about “calling on the name” indicates worship.<br />
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We know that the ancient Canaanites worshiped at such outdoor shrines. You can see how a large tree or a grove of trees in a dry, arid place would be a natural gathering spot. Much later, the prophet Hosea spoke of Israel <span style="color: #f1c232;">“sacrificing under oak, poplar, and terebinth [trees] because their shade is good” </span>(Hosea 4:13). The pagan people erected stone pillars in such places for sacrifice, and it seems that these were probably “general use” structures. They did not belong to one congregation or people; anyone could make use of them. Think of a public park with picnic tables and grills for cookouts. And yet, Abram does not use one of these Canaanite pillars. We are explicitly told that he built his own altar there at the Oak of Moreh to sacrifice to the Lord.<br />
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Then the story takes a detour in Genesis 12. They go down to Egypt to escape a famine. When it’s over, they journey back up to the Promised Land in Genesis 13 and make camp again in the same spot—between Bethel and Ai. Again, Abram <span style="color: #f1c232;">“calls upon the name of the LORD”</span> at the altar he had built there before. After he and Lot part ways, the Bibles says, <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD”</span> (Genesis 13:18).<br />
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The Lord appeared to Abram again at the oaks trees in the guise of three angels who signify the divine persons of the Trinity. The Lord came to investigate the outrages in Sodom and Gomorrah. The next time we find that tree mentioned is Genesis 18, where God visits he who is now called Abraham and confirms the promise with a prophecy of a son born to Sarah.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;">“And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth”</span> (Genesis 18:1-2).<br />
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At first, Abram had built his own altars for sacrifice at these sacred groves of the native Canaanites. Later in Genesis 21:33, Abram (now Abraham) planted his own grove of trees at Beersheeba and used it as a place of sacrifice, to <span style="color: #f1c232;">“call upon the Name of the Lord, the everlasting God.”</span><br />
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Need we even be reminded how the Lord first appeared to Moses? In a tree lit up with the fire of the divine Presence on a high mountain! When the people entered the Promised Land after the exodus, Joshua set up a great stone tablet of covenant laws under the oak tree of Shechem in the holy place of the Lord, where Abraham first encountered God in the Promised Land (Joshua 24:26).<br />
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In the time of the Judges, Deborah held court under <span style="color: #f1c232;">“the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel” </span>(Judges 4:5). The Israelites thought it fitting to bury the great Prophetess close the Lord’s dwelling, under the oak tree at Bethel. In the story of the call of Gideon in Judges 6, we read: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah”</span> and that Gideon brought his offering to the oak tree there.<br />
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Of course, as the nation takes shape, these sacred groves (which are often on hills or mountains) play less and less a part of the official religious life of the nation. Worship is consolidated in Jerusalem. Country folks still worship the God of Abraham at some of these high places, but the native pagans use them too and there is always the danger of syncretism in their religious faith. At the time of the reforms of Josiah, these high places are finally suppressed. One of the more curious details from this era comes from 2 Kings 23:7 in which all of the pagan elements are forcefully removed from the temple in Jerusalem including one operation <span style="color: #f1c232;">“where the women wove hangings for the grove.” </span><br />
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Graham Hancock, former reporter for the Economist gave this description of the sacred groves of the Qemant, a judaized animist group in Ethiopia: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Gnarled and massive, the acacia was so ancient that it would have been easy to believe it stood there for hundreds and perhaps even for thousands of years. . . . what made this site so different from any other place of worship I had come across in my travels—was the fact that every branch of the tree to a height of about six feet off the ground had been festooned with woven strips of vari-coloured cloth. Rustling in the wind, these waving pennants and ribbons seemed to whisper and murmur—almost as if they were seeking to impart a message"</span> (Graham Hancock’s <i>The Sign and the Seal</i>, pg 247).<br />
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One thing that intrigued American poet Joyce Kilmer, is the tree’s constant and intimate communion with God. Before such a powerfully reverent creation, he can only sense his own inadequacy and weakness. We humans can produce wonderful, eloquent poetry, but what is a poem, which emerges from our frail quills; compared to the timeless wisdom embodied in a something like a tree, a simple yet infinitely complex creation wrought by the marvelous hand of God? So it is with the mystery of the Catholic Church—the marvelous Kingdom of God in paradise, in heaven, and on earth that started as the smallest of seeds in Jesus’ parable. It is a great fruitful tree which the Lord himself has created, planted, watered, and raised up to his glory.
With that application in mind, let us consider again Kilmer’s words:<br />
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I think that I shall never see<br />
A poem as lovely as a tree.<br />
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest<br />
Against the earth’s sweet flowing brest;<br />
A tree that looks at God all day,<br />
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,<br />
A tree that may in summer wear<br />
A nest of robins in her hair;<br />
Upon whose bosom snow has lain,<br />
Who intimately lives with rain.<br />
Poems are made by fools like me,<br />
But only God can make a tree.<br />
Temple in Jerusalem<br />
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The God of Abraham "lived" on Mount Sinai. His presence was indicated with characteristic signs of theophany—smoke and fire, clouds and thunder and lightning. The mountain was set apart. No one but Moses was to set foot on the mountain.<br />
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The tablets of testimony written with the commandments of God (inscribed first with his own hand) were a portable sign of his presence. They were made of the material of the mountain and were inscribed with his will. An ark of acacia wood was made to transport them—again, materials from the mountain where the God of Abraham dwelt. When Moses put them in a box to take them to the Promised Land, it was almost as if they had put God himself in a box to take to the Promised Land. In reality, the tabernacle transported the tangible elements of that first encounter with God on the mountain.<br />
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God repeatedly “descended” to renew that encounter and make it sacred space once again. All the elements of theophany followed the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark—and the tabernacle which housed it—were God’s residence on the earth. It would make sense that God would give details instructions for the construction and operation of his residence. Again and again, Moses was told to make these things <span style="color: #f1c232;">“according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.”</span> From the priceless gems, to the gold plating, to the fine cloth of scarlet and purple and linen vesture, the décor of the sanctuary reminds us that nothing but the finest that man has to offer is fitting for God’s dwelling place.<br />
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When the structure was complete, the Bible says: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would go onward; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not go onward till the day that it was taken up. For throughout all their journeys the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel”</span> (Exodus 40:34-38).<br />
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God’s tangible presence dwelt above the “mercy seat”—the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant—between two winged angels bowed down in worship. This was the most sacred space on earth. The closer to this sacred space you get, the more one leaves the realm of earth and enters the realm of heaven. We can see gradations of holiness with gradations of distinction reflected in the layout, building materials, and use of the tabernacle. The closer to God, the more set apart and precious the features become.<br />
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The less holy area of the outer courtyard was open to the laity and the metal associated with its construction was bronze. Moving further inward, only the priests and Levites (who were themselves consecrated for God) were admitted to the holy place in which the items were overlaid with gold (except for the menorah which was solid gold). Further inward, the contents of the holy of holies were either plated with gold on both the inside and outside (like the ark) or were made of solid gold (like the mercy seat). The Holy of holies was off limits to everyone by the high priest, who only entered once a year to offer blood on the Day of Atonement (<i>Yom Kippur</i>). The sacredness of the entire precinct was evident from the proscription that the priests and Levites should camp in between the tabernacle and the tents of the other tribes during their sojourn in the wilderness.<br />
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When the Ark found a permanent home in Jerusalem, David said he would not rest until a fitting residence was made for the Lord and the Ark of his presence. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement in that the palace of the king and the palace of God (the temple) were essentially a part of the same complex. David was not to live to see it accomplished; that was left to his son, King Solomon. When the temple was finished and dedicated, we find the same description of the Lord descending and taking up residence within the Holy of holies was happened with the portable tabernacle.<br />
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God was with his people, coming with them from Egypt, through the desert, and taking up residence on a new mountain called Zion in the land of promise. The New Jerusalem is also said to be a place where God can dwell in the midst of his people. When John tells us he sees the Ark in heaven as it was in the old Jerusalem, but it has become a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head. She bears a Son who rules the nations with a rod of iron. Later, it is the Lamb who dwells in the midst of his people in the New Jerusalem.<br />
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It is no wonder then that John begins his gospel with a description of Jesus becoming (as it were) the new temple. <span style="color: #f1c232;">“And the Word became flesh and dwelt (literally, “tabernacle”) among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”</span> (John 1:14).<br />
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In his book <i>Jesus of Nazareth</i> (Infancy Narratives) Pope Benedict XVI wrote: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“The man Jesus is the dwelling-place of the Word, the eternal divine Word, in this world. Jesus’ ‘flesh,’ his human existence, is the ‘dwelling’ or ‘tent’ of the Word: the reference to the sacred tent of Israel in the wilderness is unmistakable. Jesus is, so to speak, the tent of meeting—he is the reality for which the tent and the later Temple could only serve as signs.”</span> As tragic an end as it was, it is fitting that the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant came to an end and the Temple of Herod was razed to the ground because Jesus is the eternal sacrifice, the New Covenant, and the living Temple of the Most High.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Facing East</b></span><br />
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The portable tabernacle in the wilderness and then the temple in Jerusalem were oriented the same as most all of the temples of the ancient world. The entrance pointed toward the east, the sunrise being a vivid symbol of the power of the deity coming into his temple. As beings of matter and spirit, it is important to recognize that we worship with both the soul and the body. Posture is a part of how we worship with the body.<br />
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Here is Father Beste at the altar of this church, leading his people in a solemn procession toward Christ in paradise, which is what the Eucharistic liturgy is all about. The common direction of clergy and people is a vivid reminder of their anticipation of, and movement toward, the paradise that awaits with the return of Christ in glory. We’ll ignore the fact that they’re technically headed in the wrong direction. It had long since become customary to consider the altar end of the church “liturgical East” no matter what the compass read. Was it a mistake to put the altar at the western end of this room? My only comment about that is to observe that if it had been put at the eastern end, the altar would not have been struck by lightning!<br />
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Do we find directionality in biblical prayer? Only in hints. In Isaiah 38, we read: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order; for you shall die, you shall not recover.’ Then Hezekiah <i>turned his face to the wall</i>, and prayed to the Lord . . .” </span>(Isaiah 38:1-2). The King was moved to prayer when faced with his own mortality. The royal palace was just west of the temple complex. Perhaps too sick to rise from his bed, we can safely assume he thought it at least proper and expedient that he should roll over and face toward the East (even if he was facing toward a blank wall) to address God in his house.<br />
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This gesture is a little passing reminder of how important directionality in worship was to people of days past—not just in ancient times, but approaching the modern era. Even after Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment which both served to detach spiritual matters from the physical realm, we still took the care to orient at least our churches if not ourselves when addressing God in prayer. Even the word “orientation” indicates a physical movement toward the <i>oriens</i>—Latin for “East.”<br />
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The one clear contradiction of this principal of praying toward the East in the Bible comes with the act of defiance that gets Daniel thrown into the lion’s den. In an effort to destroy Daniel, his enemies maneuvered to get King Darius to sign a decree stating that whoever prays to any god or man for thirty days, except to the king, shall be cast into the den of lions. The Bible says, <span style="color: #f1c232;">“When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously”</span> (Daniel 6:10).<br />
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Some scholars think that at least during the Exile, it was a common practice to face toward the temple mount for prayer, longing for the day when God’s dwelling place would be restored and his people would be brought home. Another explanation could be that by deliberately facing this way, it would be obvious that Daniel was engaging in an act of defiance toward the prohibition of worship by earthly power.<br />
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One thing we inherited from our Jewish roots of worship is this idea of direction in our posture of prayer. Like them, the earliest Christians also faced East in worship. This ancient Christian liturgical posture was traditionally interpreted as a bodily expression of the assembly’s eschatological expectation—awaiting Christ’s return in glory. Christ himself, the “Light of the world”, the “Dayspring from on High,” the “Bright Morning Star” is signified by the rising sun whose dawn marks the consummation of all things in a restored Paradise (whose type, Eden, lies “in the east“).<br />
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Perhaps nowhere is this more vividly realized architecturally than here—at Christo Rey Carmelite Monastery in San Francisco. The priest is leading the people in that liturgical procession toward paradise as all of the sudden Jesus bursts forth into this world from the Eastern horizon in his glorious return to earth. The anticipation of the <i>parousia</i> has been realized in the advent of his Real Presence.<br />
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St. John of Damascus explained: <span style="color: #f1c232;">“When ascending into heaven, [Jesus] rose towards the East, and that is how the apostles adored him, and he will return just as they saw him ascend into heaven . . . Waiting for him, we adore him facing East. This is an unrecorded tradition passed down to us from the apostles”</span> (<i>On the Orthodox Faith</i> 4:12). “Facing the Lord” in the liturgy often meant facing the tabernacle because it was there that the blessed Sacrament was reserved. Liturgically speaking, however, it is the eschatological orientation of the assembly toward the rendezvous with Christ in his new Advent which is paramount.<br />
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During the time of house churches, it was common to mark the Eastern wall of the home or courtyard with a cross, which would serve to indicate the direction of prayer during the time of worship for the community gathered at the Lord’s table. This was even before the period when the cross became a symbol commonly used in Christian circles.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>The Church </b></span><br />
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A church building is the intentional creation of sacred space, and since it is the culmination of thousands of years of tradition on worship, it brings to fulfillment those traditions in its design. In his book <i>Church Building and Furnishing</i>, liturgical scholar J. B. O’Connell notes repeatedly that the church building is the holiest of sanctuaries. <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Apart from the sacramental presence of our Lord,”</span> he wrote, <span style="color: #f1c232;">“the church is a holy place, filled with the Divine Presence—more so than the Temple of old ever was. . . . A church by its very appearance should proclaim its character and the grandeur of its high and enduring purpose. It should not only be a church, but look like one . . . The church should have its own peculiar atmosphere, an atmosphere that is holy, hieratic, mystical, inspiring . . . that befits the perfect House of God”</span> (pg 8-9).<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Making Space Holy</b></span><br />
It’s important to remember that you are the church, the mystical Body of Christ, you are sacred space. St Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians, <span style="color: #f1c232;">“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are”</span> (1 Cor 4:16-17). When our Lord comes to us, may he find in our hearts a mansion prepared for himself!<br />
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For our own spiritual well-being, we have to make sacred space in our own lives. We should put forth the time and effort to turn a part of our world into Paradise—that “walled garden” where order and beauty are cultivated, and where God and man spend time together, enjoying each other’s company. It should look like paradise, like a little corner of heaven. Perhaps the use of icons, or plants, or color, or fabric, or some such means of marking territory as holy and set apart from the rest of the world can help form a sacred space in your own life and foster communion with God.<br />
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We have so many exceptions to the rules, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what the rules are. According to the ancient practice and laws of the church, only the ordained clergy may enter the chancel and sanctuary. Like the priests and Levites encamped between the tabernacle and the people, they were gathered close to wait upon the Lord.<br />
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As a part of the altar guild, it is your service to stand in for the clergy and attend to the needs of the sanctuary. What can we do to mark off that sacred space? Entering the sanctuary, if it truly is the house of God, begs us to set apart ourselves as well. The rule of silence is paramount. As much as possible, the only words spoken should be words of scripture or words of prayer. A sacredness can be imparted through proper dress. Like the acolytes, perhaps only a special outfit is used when working in the sanctuary. Perhaps the ancient practice of the veil being worn in the house of God would be appropriate. The same attire and attitude can be a way of creating sacred space in our own lives and homes. It can be a way of building that wall for our Eden—setting it apart from the world.<br />
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Like Abraham finding rest in the Promised Land, we encounter God at a tree which serves as a place of sacrifice. Let us always have an image of the crucifix to attune us to prayer—perhaps on the east side of a room, marking the direction in which to cultivate our longing for Christ’s return.<br />
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A candle or two lit at the time of prayer is a way of invoking Christ’s presence, who once lit up the burning bush on Sinai and called it holy ground, who was named as the “Light of the world”, “the Dayspring”, and the “Bright Morning Star.” May God grant you to find sanctuary in your life this Lent.
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-55928053124807392112017-03-13T13:29:00.003-05:002017-03-13T13:29:53.523-05:00Our Mission to Muslims, Week 2This week, we had the first in our two session crash course covering Muslim doctrine and practice. Week 3 will cover the Muslim view of God, Muhammad, and the Qur'an.<br />
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First, we followed up on a topic from Week 1 and looked at a video on Ann Holmes Redding, the former Episcopal priest/practicing Muslim in Seattle.<br />
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Second, we looked at the new Sports Hijab, just announced from Nike. My thought was that with 500 million Muslim women in the world, it's hard to believe they never came out with this until now.<br />
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Third, we surveyed Muslim practice by looking at the Five Pillars.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Practicing the Faith: the Five Pillars of Islam </b></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">1. Shahadah – the Creed.</span></b> The daily declaration of faith for a Muslim is, <i>Ashud anna, la illaha illa Allah wa Muhammad rasul Allah</i> (“I witness that there is no god but God and Muhammad is the Prophet of God”). Muslims take on a duty to witness to the world. The second part affirms the existence of one God by negating the existence of any other god or creature that people might worship. Islam is emphatically monotheistic. The third part of the creed witnesses that God sent prophets to humankind and that Muhammad was the last (and thus the greatest or definitive) prophet, or messenger who received the revelation from God.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>2. Salah – Daily Prayers.</b></span> The offering of five daily prayers are the duty of every Muslim. They perform the recitations and physical movements of <i>salah</i> or <i>salat</i> as taught by Muhammad. In the <i>salah</i>, Muslims recite specific words and selected verses from the Qur’an while standing, bowing, kneeling with the hands and forehead touching the ground, and sitting. Each of the five prayers can be performed within a window of time: (1) <i>Fajr</i> -between dawn and sunrise, (2) <i>Zuhr</i> - noon to mid-afternoon, (3) <i>Asr</i> - between midafternoon and just before sunset, (4) <i>Maghrib</i> - at sunset, and (5) <i>Isha</i> - after twilight until nighttime. The repeated affirmation that "God is great" forms the structure prayer. One can also see a few refutations of Christian claims as well as something reminiscent of the "Glory be." To get a sense of what Muslim prayer is like, we watched a video of the shortest prayer, which is the first of the day.<br />
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Prayer time is determined by local time and the direction is always toward the Ka’bah in Mecca. Each prayer time is preceded by a ritual cleansing called <i>wudu</i>. At the end of the prayer, and throughout their lives, Muslims may also pray informally, asking for guidance and help in their own words. If two or more Muslims pray together, one of them will be the <i>imam</i> (prayer leader), and the others form rows behind the <i>imam</i>. In fact, the term "mosque" means "a place of prostration."<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>3. Zakah – Almsgiving. </b></span>The word for this duty of charity means "purification," indicating that a person is purified from greed by giving wealth to others. When Muslims have cash savings for a year, they give 2.5% of it as <i>zakat</i>. <i>Zakat </i>on other forms of wealth, such as land, natural resources, and livestock is calculated at different rates. Paying the <i>zakat</i> reminds Muslims of the duty to help those less fortunate, and that wealth is a gift entrusted to a person by God rather than a possession to be hoarded selfishly. Muhammad set the precedent that <i>zakah</i> was collected and distributed locally, and what remained after meeting local needs was distributed to the larger Muslim community through the general treasury.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>4. <i>Sawm</i> – Fasting in Ramadan.</b></span> During this one month each year, Muslims fast by not eating or drinking anything between dawn and sunset. Fasting is a duty for adults, but many children participate partially on a voluntary basis. The fast begins with <i>sahoor</i> (a pre-dawn meal). While fasting, Muslims perform the dawn, noon and afternoon prayers, and go about their normal duties. At sunset, Muslims break their fast with a few dates and water, then pray, then eat <i>iftar</i> (a meal that breaks the fast). <i>Iftar</i> is usually eaten with family and friends, or at the <i>masjid</i>, which hosts meals donated by community members for all. After the evening prayer, many Muslims go to the <i>masjid</i> for congregational prayers that feature a reading of one thirtieth of the Qur’an each night. They complete the whole Qur’an by the end of the month, which is a celebration of the revelation of the Qur'an.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>5. Hajj – Pilgrimage to Mecca. </b></span>The basic act of worship in Islam is the pilgrimage to the city of Mecca (or Makkah) during the twelfth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, <i>Dhul-Hijjah</i>. The <i>hajj</i> rites symbolically reenact the trials and sacrifices of Prophet Abraham, his wife Hajar, and their son Isma’il (not Isaac, as in the Torah) which included
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isma’il in response to God’s command. Muslims must perform the <i>hajj</i> at least once in their lives, provided their health and finances permit. The hajj is performed annually by over 2 million people and different nations are given an annual number of pilgrims allowed to go on the <i>hajj</i> by Saudi Arabia. In the last decade, the Saudi kingdom has spent tens of billions of dollars upgrading the facilities for the <i>hajj</i>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Sects of Islam </b></span></span><br />
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Islam consists of roughly 84% Sunnis, 15% Shiites (largely Iranian) and 1% unorthodox.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Sunni </b></span>means “tradition,” and Sunnis regard themselves as those who emphasize following the traditions of Muhammad and of the first two generations of the community of Muslims that followed Muhammad. Sunnis believe that the successor to Muhammad (a <i>Calif</i>) should be elected, while Shi’ites believe a bloodline succession should be followed. Sunnis formed the concept of Islamic law called <i>Shari’a</i> (literally: “the way to the watering hole”). The highest authority is the Qur’an (God's revelations), followed by the <i>Sunnah</i> in the <i>Hadith</i> (sayings of Muhammad), and the consensus of the community called the <i>ijma</i>. This <i>ijma</i> became the final resource for law and ethics among Sunnis.<br />
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A number of movements to reform Islam have originated in the 20th Century. Most are Sunni movements, such as the <span style="color: #f1c232;"><b><i>Wahhabis</i></b></span> (the puritanical version of Islam in Saudi Arabia), the <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Muslim Brotherhood</span></b> (of Egypt), and <b><i><span style="color: #f1c232;">Jama`at-i-Islami</span></i></b>.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Shia</b></span> Islam is the second largest group, and largely Persian rather than Arab. Shi’ites are the “party of Ali,” who believe that Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali was his designated successor (<i>imam</i>) and that the Muslim community should be headed by a descendent of Muhammad. As a result, they believe that <i>Ali ibn Abi Talib</i> was the first real Imam (leader), rejecting the legitimacy of the previous Muslim caliphs accepted by Sunnis: Abu Bakr, Uthman ibn al-Affan and Umar ibn al-Khattab. Different branches accept different descendants of Ali as Imams. In contrast with Sunnis who have a more egalitatian leadership, Shi’ites believe their imams to be a fully spiritual guide, inheriting some of Muhammad’s inspiration. The movement also glorifies martyrdom, has a mystical side, and firmly believes in theocracy as the best form of government.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Sufis</b></span></i> are Islamic mystics. In response to the growing legalism of mainstream Islam, Sufis went beyond external requirements of the religion to seek a personal experience of God through forms of meditation and spiritual growth. A number of Sufi orders exist, analogous to Christian monastic orders. Most Sufis are also Sunni Muslims, although some are Shi'ite Muslims. Many conservative Sunni Muslims regard Sufism as a corruption of Islam, although most still regard Sufis as Muslims.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Baha’is</b></span> and <b><i><span style="color: #f1c232;">Ahmadiyyas</span></i></b> are 19th Century offshoots of Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, respectively. Bahai’s consider themselves a new religion, originating from Shi'ite Islam as Christianity originated from Judaism. <i><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Ahmadiyyas</b></span></i> regard themselves as Muslims. Most other Muslims, however, deny that either group is a legitimate form of Islam.
<i><span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Druze</b></span></i>, <b><i><span style="color: #f1c232;">Alevis</span></i></b>, and <b><i><span style="color: #f1c232;">Alawis</span></i></b> are other small, sectarian groups with unorthodox beliefs and practices that split off from Islam. <i>Druze</i> and <i>Alevis</i> do not regard themselves as Muslims and are not considered Muslims by other Muslims. <i>Alawis</i> have various non-Islamic practices, but debate continues as to whether they should still be considered Muslims. <span style="color: #f1c232;"><b><i>Sikhism</i></b></span> is a pacifist blend of Islam and Hinduism, resulting in what might be called a “monotheistic atheism.”<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Nation of Islam</b></span> is a black nationalistic Muslim cult of the USA invented by Wallace Fard and Elijah Muhammad. Fard was a white man believed to be Allah incarnate. In 1975, Elijah’s son and successor Warith Deen Muhammad introduced reforms to bring black American Muslims into the mainstream of Sunni Islam. Some disagreed with the reforms, like Louis Farrakhan who leads his own reboot of the Nation of Islam.<br />
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Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-66224091037893176762017-03-06T00:59:00.002-06:002017-03-06T01:01:45.473-06:00Lent 1: Your Rule of LifeOn the First Sunday in Lent, I gave and educational message about having a rule of life. Notes are below.<br />
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Rule (<i>regula</i>) is the pattern, model, or example by which
we wish to intentionally shape our spiritual lives, particularly our prayer lives.
In his book about spiritual growth and maturity, titled <i>Christian Proficiency</i>,
Thornton explains: <span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">“Rule is a help and not a hindrance,
something liberating not restrictive, expansive not burdensome,
in accord with the freedom of the Christian spirit
and absolutely opposed to ‘legalism.’ It is always a means to an end, and never an end in itself,
and its content is only ascetical theology.”</span></span><br />
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Thornton makes a few observations about Rule that flow out of this understanding:<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>1. Rule is “embraced,” not “promised” or “vowed.”</b></span>
He tells us it would be Pharisaical, legalistic, and quite unChristian
to solemnly promise or vow to “keep” this kind of “rule.”
Remember: it’s not about a list of rules; it’s a plan for fruitful living.
<span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">“A Christian regular is one who chooses to undertake his common obligations and duties,
and to develop his personal spirituality, by acknowledging, accepting,
or ‘embracing’ some total scheme, system, pattern or ‘rule’ of prayer.<b>"</b></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">2. Rule is wholly opposed to legalism.</span></b>
As Thornton would say, rule is always a means to an end, never the end itself.
A legalistic approach would turn it around the opposite way.
Legalism is totally concerned with the letter of the law, not the spirit.
Rule is totally concerned with the spirit
and only uses tools like the letter of the law to foster the spirit.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>3. Rule is neither artificial, nor a burden, but the principle of civilized life.
</b></span>Rule of Life is about being a part of Christian culture and civilization
which is built around three great elements of the Christian spiritual life:
1. The sacrifice of Christ in the Mass;
2. The Office, which is the prayer of Christ to the Father
through his mystical Body, the Church;
and 3. Our own personal, private prayers and devotions.
As Thornton put it: <span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="color: #f1c232;">“So dare we think of the Eucharist as the living heart
of the Body of Christ; of the Office as its continual beat, its pulse;
and private prayer as the circulation of the blood giving life and strength
to its several members according to their need and capacity?”</span></span>
Rule is about being joined to Jesus.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>4. Breach of Rule is not (necessarily) a sin. </b></span>Thornton calls it a fault.
We have to keep in mind what sin is—transgressing the revealed will of God,
Of put more simply, breaking God’s commandments.
Breaking my own will or my own rules is technically amoral.
It only becomes a sin if it happens to overlap with God’s laws
or the church’s laws (since God told us to obey her law).
For example, if I give up chocolate cake for Lent, and then eat some, that’s only a fault.
But if I put keeping the Sabbath in my rule, and don’t keep it, that is a sin—
not because I broke my own rule, but because I broke God’s rule.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>5. Rule is, and must always remain, variable.
</b></span> It should fit the person and the time. Life changes, people change,
so it only makes sense that rule of life should change along with it.
It can be relaxed, strengthened, modified, or varied.
As we said, most people have a special rule just for Lent.
Your normal rule should be reexamined from time to time to see if it “fits.”
It ought to fit and it should be something the soul should “grow into.”
Ideally, your rule should become totally second-nature.
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-24100765173731974522017-03-06T00:43:00.006-06:002017-03-06T00:46:11.531-06:00Our Mission to Muslims, Week 1These are some notes and videos from our Friday Lenten Study Series at S. Francis Anglican Church in Dallas on the topic of "Our Mission to Muslims."<br />
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We started off with an oldie, but goodie: an article from the newspaper in St. Louis about an Episcopal priest who decided to take up the practice of Islam for Lent back in 2011. It begins: "The Rev. Steve Lawler should have just given up chocolate or television for Lent. Instead, Lawler, of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Ferguson, decided to adopt the rituals of Islam for 40 days to gain a deeper understanding of the faith. On Friday, he faced being defrocked if he continued in those endeavors."<br />
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<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_b3a20403-96c5-5766-af26-8fd662652a13.html">Click here to read the whole story.</a><br />
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Lawler was trying out Islam in a limited fashion as a Lenten gimmick. I guess he gave it up because he wasn't disciplined by his bishop. Not so with <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/i-am-both-muslim-and-christian/">Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest in Seattle</a> was also more a practicing Muslim for a little over a year and seemed far more into it than Lawler. She was given an ultimatum in 2008 by her bishop to repent and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/02/muslim.minister.defrocked/index.html?_s=PM:US">was eventually defrocked when she did not.</a><br />
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We also viewed an episode of Anglican Unscripted in which Father Argo was interviewed. It was important to get a first-hand perspective from someone on the front lines. The interview we watched is below.<br />
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Father Argo also did a follow up interview on Anglican Unscripted, which I have put below.<br />
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Then we looked at the following hand-out.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b>Witnessing to Muslims</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Remember the context.</b></span> Islam is a false religion that could be called a Christian heresy. It has many of the same cast of characters, but false ideas about things like what God is like, who Jesus is, how salvation works, etc.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>All of us are called to defend the faith</b></span>, but we are also called to confront the errors of false religion. Think of it like a sports team. We all get to play defense (apologetics—explaining the faith), but sometimes we are chosen to play offense (to go on the attack). The gospel is, by definition, offensive. Consider it a privilege when you have an opportunity to talk about Jesus with a Muslim.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Not all Muslims are the same. </span></b>There are 175 sects of Islam. There are 4 schools of jurisprudence within just the largest, Sunni Islam. And a Sunni from one part of the world will be different from a Sunni from another. Get to know them; listen to them.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>They view the Qu’ran like we view the Sacrament, not like we view the Bible. </b></span>It is deemed nearly divine itself, and is in many ways distant to them. Muhammad got more violent as he got older, and that’s unfortunate because the later verses trump the earlier ones.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Muslims like to talk about religion. </b></span>They are looking to communicate their beliefs. Don’t seek commonality. And keep it on religion and not on politics. Always be loving, but also be sure of yourself and what you believe. Ask blunt and provocative questions, like “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God; what do you think?” or “I believe Jesus’ death on the cross atoned for our sins; what do you think?” or “I believe that Jesus rose from the dead; what do you think?” Let them answer and be the skeptic. Sit back and look for weakness in their arguments. They are often circular.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Talk about Jesus, not about Muhammad.</b></span> Let Jesus get bigger, and their prophet get smaller. They will be interested in Jesus and respect him already. They believe he heals and will let you pray for them in Jesus’ name!<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Do what God is doing. </b></span>Take advantage of opportunities the Lord brings into your life. Pray and fast and confess your sins. People are not converted without humility and love.<br />
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<span style="color: #f1c232;"><b>Do not be discouraged when you do not see results. </b></span>These things usually happen slowly. We are a part of the Holy Spirit's work of challenging assumptions, creating doubts, declaring truth, and instilling faith.
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-56894067472569404142017-02-12T23:06:00.001-06:002017-02-12T23:06:39.182-06:00Getting ready to get ready?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A few years ago, Father Allen reinstituted the parish observance of the pre-Lenten season, or what is sometimes called Shrovetide. It was abolished in the revision of the calendar with the new lectionary. Epiphany became the green Sundays of “ordinary time” lasting until Ash Wednesday. But Shrovetide has had a little revival of sorts. A pre-Lent scheme was put back into the calendar of <i>Common Worship</i> (the modern Prayer Book used in the Church of England) as well the calendar used by the Anglican Ordinariates.<br />
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Pre-Lent begins with three “gesima” Sundays—<i>Septuagesima</i>, <i>Sexagesima</i>, and <i>Quinquagesima</i>. Of these, only <i>Quinquagesima</i> is literally named—“fifty days” before Easter. As in Lent, the vestments are purple, the Gloria and Alleluias are dropped, and the dismissal is “Let us bless the Lord.” But Shrovetide is not quite Lent. Pre-Lent is actually the carnival season (or Mardi-Gras as they say in New Orleans). There is a certain festivity that attends to using up all the things to be abstained from during Lent. <br />
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However, when pre-Lent was removed, the character of Lent was altered. You might associate Lent with repentance above all, but that’s not how it was supposed to work. In the old arrangement, Shrovetide was the time to repent, the time to be “shriven” of your sins (to make your confession and be absolved), while Lent was the time to “do penance.” As Lent was the desert experience, pre-Lent was said to be the Babylonian captivity when you prayed to return to the Promised Land.<br />
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In searching for a fitting bulletin graphic, I found a set of shields for each season. The pictures and words on the shields are telling. For pre-Lent, they are tools for discerning and rejecting sin: “Law, Scripture, Prayer, Repentance.” For Lent, they are tools for making amends for our faults: “Alms, Fasting, Abstinence, Scourging.”<br />
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Pre-Lent is not redundant (just “getting ready to get ready for Easter”), but a unique time of transition to holy ground.<br />
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Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-40411698591563799142017-01-15T19:10:00.001-06:002017-01-15T19:19:22.753-06:00Sanctity of Life Sunday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sanctity of Life Sunday is usually the Sunday closest to January 22nd, the day in 1973 that the US Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in all nine months of pregnancy. This year it is on the actual anniversary and this place holds special significance because Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) and District Attorney Henry Wade were from Dallas. The landmark case that changed America originated right here.<br />
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Abortion is still the leading cause of death in the United States. We have things to give thanks for (declining numbers of abortions and an increasingly pro-life outlook among young people), but there is still much work to be done. And our concern is not just for the unborn and for their mothers, but also for the forgotten and marginalized members of our society—the poor, the elderly and disabled, prisoners on death row, and those wrestling with suicide.<br />
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<a href="http://www.stfrancisdallas.org/">S. Francis Parish</a> has participated for years in the local March for Life, in offerings for Pro-Life ministries, and in training and equipping young women who make the choice to keep and raise the child to make positive life choices and improve their life skills. I am humbled to be a part of a parish with this commitment.<br />
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As a church, we are committed to standing for and with those who are most vulnerable in our society. This commitment is reflected in the founding documents of the province: “God, and not man, is the creator of human life. The unjustified taking of life is sinful. Therefore, all members and clergy are called to promote and respect the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death.” (<i>Anglican Church in North America - Constitution and Canons, Title II, Canon 8, Section 3</i>).<br />
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Let us pray especially for changed hearts, for healing for all who have been involved in abortion or other end of life situations, and for a renewed appreciation of the value and respect for human life that is fitting for human beings created in the image of God.<br />
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Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-53756487152251655132017-01-02T23:38:00.000-06:002017-01-03T17:32:39.795-06:00Hosanna to the Son of David<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This Christmastide, Ive been reading from Raymond Brown's monumental work <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Birth-Messiah-Commentary-Narratives-Reference/dp/0300140088/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483417857&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Birth+of+the+Messiah"><i>The Birth of Messiah</i></a>. In the second appendix (pg 505ff), he considers the issue of the Davidic descent of Jesus.<br />
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Brown notes that the majority of scholars think that the claim that Jesus is descended from the house of David is historically reliable. But there is also many who argue that the claim is a theologoumenon (a historicized theological assertion). The argument goes: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"the Christian community believed that Jesus had fulfilled Israel's hopes; prominent among those hopes was the expectation of a Messiah, and so the traditional title 'Messiah' was given to Jesus; but in Jewish thought, the Messiah was pictured as having Davidic descent; consequently Jesus was described as 'Son of David'; and eventually a Davidic genealogy was fashioned for him"</span> (pg 505). Those who argue this point to the example of Zadok the high priest, who rose to power but (it would seem) had to invent the pedigree in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Chronicles+6%3A1-8&version=RSV">1 Chronicles 6:1-8</a> that gave him the authority to exercise that priesthood.<br />
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Brown is not convinced. Like the majority of scholars, he finds the idea that Jesus' Davidic claim is historical to be more believable that the alternative. Some of the support he offers is intriguing.<br />
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1. Relatives of Jesus were known in the primitive Church. If the family was not Davidic, why would anyone have given credit to the claim? and why would they have gone along with it?<br />
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2. Why did Jesus' enemies never raise a protest to this Davidic claim if it was historically questionable? Brown explains: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"One would expect to find traces of a polemic, especially on the part of the Pharisees, denying Jesus' Davidic status as falsified. But, while there are Jewish attacks on Jewish legitimacy, there is no polemic against his Davidic descent as such"</span> (pg 507).<br />
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That brings to mind another aspect that Brown does not mention, which is that while we find frequent attack upon Jesus' origin with claims that Mary was raped or had an affair, no one seems to claim that Mary and Joseph just had premarital sex and weren't careful about pregnancy before the marriage was (at least ceremonially) consummated.<br />
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That Joseph was Jesus' natural father would seem to be the natural argument to make, for someone arguing against any supernatural element in his conception. <b><span style="color: #f1c232;">The fact that no one was making that argument is because the whole purpose of the attack was to undermine Jesus' family claim to be the Messiah (anointed) Son of David.</span> </b>If Joseph was the natural father, the Davidic bloodline is sure and his Messianic claim solidified; the attack would be undermined.<br />
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3. Brown also points out that it has been claimed that St. Simeon of Jerusalem, son of Clopas and cousin of the Lord Jesus, was martyred more because he was a <i>Davidid</i>, not so much because he was a Christian. Brown notes that Rome was concerned local uprisings and power grabs, and thus about Davidic claims. <span style="color: #f1c232;">"Hegesippus is cited to the effect that, after the capture of Jerusalem in 70, Vespasian issued an order that the descendants of David should be ferreted out, so that no member of the royal house should be left among the Jews"</span> (pg 508).<br />
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4. Another interesting detail I had overlooked is the parallel expectation among the Jews of Qumran was of a kind of parallel priestly messiah from the tribe of Levi along with the political kingly messiah from the tribe of Judah, which is kind of what we got with John the Baptist and Jesus.<br />
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5. Lastly, Brown notes that evidence for the Davidid claim is early, first showing up in Romans 1:3 (written c. 58) and Paul here is simply quoting an older creedal formula. Would Paul have done so if there was any question about the Davidid claim? Brown explains: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"To a man with Paul's training as a Pharisee, the Davidic ancestry of the Messiah would be a question of paramount importance, <b>especially in the period before his conversion when he was seeking arguments to refute the followers of Jesus</b>. Paul, who twice insists on his own Benjaminite descent (Rom 11:1; Philip 3:5), would scarcely have been disinterested in the Davidic descent of Jesus"</span> (pg 508).<br />
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Brown sums up his appendix on the issue by stating, <span style="color: #f1c232;">"The New Testament evidence that Jesus really was a Davidid outweighs, in my opinion, doubts to the contrary"</span> (pg 510).<br />
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-38899518695698304922016-12-29T19:47:00.001-06:002016-12-29T19:47:45.823-06:002016 Christmas Sermon<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/299583872&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-18296764299437632072016-12-02T08:34:00.001-06:002016-12-29T19:44:16.212-06:00Talks at Evensong on Revelation<iframe frameborder="no" height="150" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/295778232&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/297486679&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/297991401&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/299170881&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-51145715357527071452016-11-28T00:21:00.001-06:002016-12-02T08:39:02.011-06:00Advent 1: Always be Ready<i>For those many of you who have been requesting that I post my sermons, here you go (audio version at bottom).</i><br />
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Today we begin the season of Advent. But we must remember that the Christian life is an ongoing advent experience. We are always looking head. We are called to wait preparedly for the dawn. The darkness of the world surrounds us, but our faces are lit by the approaching light of Christ. And one of our best resources in this preparation is the illumination of God’s truth in his written Word. So I commend scripture reading to you this Advent.<br />
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During this season, we hear a lot about Bible prophecy and the coming of Jesus Christ—both his first Advent and his glorious second Advent yet to come. Saint Peter the Apostle said it so well in his first Letter: <span style="color: #ffd966;">“The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory”</span> (1 Pet 1:10-11). They did this because the purpose of Bible prophecy is to prepare God’s people to be a part of the unfolding of his plan of salvation.<br />
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Saint Paul says that our salvation (which he likens to the coming of Christ) is growing closer day by day. Our salvation is not some event in the past, but is the fulfillment of our destiny in the future. We must embrace it. So even while we live in darkness, we must cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light—to live as we would on the Day of Judgment.<br />
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Judgment Day must happen because God will triumph. He will judge the living and the dead in righteousness and truth, for he is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The reading from Isaiah 2:1-5 talked about <i>the triumph of Peace</i> at on the new earth. All the people in God’s kingdom will live in harmony and peace; they will beat their swords into plowshares, and war will be no more.<br />
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The reading from Romans 13:8-14 talked about <i>the triumph of Light</i> on the new earth. The people of God will be illumined by the true light of heaven. They shall know themselves and the Lord as he is, and live in the perfect fellowship of holiness with Christ. But these triumphs must come through judgment.<br />
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That is, society will not grow ever sophisticated until wars and conflict simply cease. Human beings will not naturally grow in wisdom until they evolve beyond their tendencies toward sin. No, God will reign over the earth by his power and might and he will judge the world by his righteousness and truth. His final victory will come by intervening in human history, setting the world straight and sweeping away all that is not holy.<br />
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But of course, sin does not want to be rooted out. The nature of sin is rebellion and conflict. The devil will fight against God’s plan till the end. But he is no match for the power of God. The Lord will triumph, and his people will be saved through this tribulation. Notice that God’s people will be saved <i>through</i> tribulation, not <i>from</i> tribulation. As a child of God, you are like a soldier caught in the cross-hairs of evil. The sinful antagonism of the world against God will be taken out on you, on the People of God.<br />
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Saint Paul warns that all who desire to live a godly life shall suffer persecution. And Jesus himself told us the world will hate those who bear his name. “Blessed are you when you are persecuted for my name’s sake.”<br />
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No one likes suffering and tribulation, so we should perhaps not be surprised that some Christians may fall into the trap of escapism. Perhaps, they think, the great tribulation is not so much the climactic rebellion of evil, as it is God’s own judgment upon the lost. This would mean that the righteous would need to be spared, and the only way for that to happen would be for God to remove them from this world-wide tribulation. The idea is called the rapture of the Church.<br />
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This doctrine and the theological view of history that goes with it called “dispensationalism” originated with the John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren. His teaching caught on in the mid 1800s in fundamentalist circles through the Niagara Bible Prophecy Conferences and was later popularized in the Scofield Reference Bible.<br />
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That school of thought prospered again around the close of the 20th Century, especially in Hal Lindsey’s <i>The Late Great Planet Earth</i> and the <i>Left Behind</i> novels and films. But the teaching is unknown in the Bible, the creeds, the Church Fathers, the Protestant reformers, and all Christian denominations for 18 centuries.<br />
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But, you may ask, doesn’t Paul say that we shall be <span style="color: #ffd966;">"caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air"?</span> Yes he does (1 Thess 4:17), but Jesus also said that the trumpet would sound and the angels would gather his people when all see the Son of Man in the clouds. So this is certainly not a secret event. And what is the point of meeting the Lord in the air? It is for him to take us up to heaven? Or for us to escort him to earth at his glorious return?<br />
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The point of gathering God’s people is not to take the Church out of the world. Jesus prayed at Gethsemane, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world.” The point is that the saints accompany Christ into the world; he does not return alone. He comes with an entourage.<br />
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At that time, when a dignitary would enter a town, the people would go out of the city to welcome him, and escort him into the city (like a parade). So it is with Christ’s return to earth in glory as judge of the living and dead.<br />
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That’s why in the old Prayer Book, the gospel passage describing Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week with the people going out to meet him, waiving palms, crying hosanna to the king, and his subsequent exercise of judgment in cleaning house at the Temple was read on the first Sunday of Advent. It was a vivid portrayal of the Second Coming.<br />
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In the Gospel reading today (Matthew 24:37-44), Jesus compared his return to the flood of Noah. Just as in Noah’s time, people will be eating and drinking and marrying. The point Jesus makes here is not that the world will be filled with evil as it was in the days of Noah (which is true); It will be completely unexpected and take them by surprise.<br />
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People will be going on about their daily lives, giving no attention to God, but then (when he is least expected) the Son of Man will appear in the clouds. A few verses before today’s reading, Jesus described the event as a flash of lightning—immediate, sudden, brilliant, and unmistakable.<br />
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Jesus says that the righteous and the wicked will be divided by that event. There will be two men in the field—one will be taken, and the other left. There will be two women at the mill—one taken, the other left. Now, those who believe in the rapture might say, “See! Here is the proof. We will be taken out of the world.”<br />
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But think carefully. Jesus is making a comparison here to the flood of Noah’s day, not to the ark. The wicked were swept away by the flood waters, while the righteous (like Noah and his family) remained—they were “left behind” in safety. You want to be left behind, not swept away. In the final judgement, the wicked will perish, and the righteous will be rewarded with eternal life.<br />
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So Jesus says, “Watch for it.” Because you do not know when that day is coming. He doesn’t tell us to try to figure out when he’ll return so we can be ready at that moment. Instead, he wisely tells us, “ALWAYS BE READY.”<br />
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How do you get ready? Read the Word of God. Examine your conscience. Go to confession. How do you get ready? Amend your ways. Live in love and charity with all people. How do you get ready? Cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Always be ready for the return of the Lord. Our salvation is closer now than when we first believed.
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/295775613&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-13739550210248424812016-07-22T10:53:00.002-05:002016-07-22T10:53:46.770-05:00A pilgrimage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last Saturday, my family and I began a journey. We set out on a drive to Delafield, Wisconsin with a lay-over in Kansas City to visit my sister and brother-in-law. It's a long drive (about 19 hours total), but rarely boring.<br />
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I’ve made the trip several times between South and North driving back and forth to and from seminary, and from the Mississippi River to the West coast (once along a Southern route through Arizona and up the California coast and twice along a Northern route across Montana). I’m always moved by the experience. This is such an amazing
land that God has entrusted to us!<br />
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I love the rolling hills of the Iowa farm country with mile after mile of tall green corn fields planted in neat sections. I bet anything would grow there. I love the plains. I could see "mountains" off in the distance when driving through Oklahoma. Wisconsin is so delightful. It looks like a postcard. When we were driving into Madison at dusk, there were swarms of fireflies along the highway. It was like a journey through space.<br />
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Coming back to seminary is also like a journey through time, coming to a place where time is always marked and sanctified by prayer, and yet where time seems to stand still. It is a place where things are ever old and ever new. I'm grateful to be here.<br />
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On Saturday, I also received a call to pastor a new congregation. It was difficult to be away from my people at that time and let my wardens break the news. When I return, the pilgrimage will have to continue. There is much work to be done (but then, there always is). I don't like saying good-bye. And I don't like moving. But I'm also excited and challenged by the new work that lies ahead. My prayer is that God will be with me along the way, keep me focused, and bless others through me.Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11611854.post-6683347314338066152016-07-13T15:18:00.000-05:002016-07-22T10:40:14.431-05:00My own introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #76a5af;">I'm throwing my hat over the fence. On Saturday, I'm leaving for my sabbatical in Wisconsin where I'll be doing research for a book I'm calling <i>Holding the Bible Hostage: How our culture shapes and distorts our understanding of the Scriptures</i> (or maybe <i>The Bible Held Hostage</i>, I'm not sure yet). I've written about half of the first chapter, so I thought I'd post my introduction. Your feedback is welcome. I thought I'd call it "<i>My own</i> introduction" because instead of introducing the subject to the reader directly, I'm telling the reader the story of how the subject was introduced to me, with hopes that my interest will be shared. </span><br />
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I don’t know how I ever found it. Maybe it found me.<br />
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The thin, red spine was only one centimeter wide and there was nothing written on it. But somehow, I happened to pull it off the shelf just far enough to see the title written in gold across the old red cloth cover. I saw “The Nazi . . .” which was an intriguing beginning for a book in the religion section. So I took it all the way out. The title read, <i>The Nazi Christ</i>. How can you put back a book like that? What in the world was a “Nazi Christ”?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #ffd966;"><i>I was floored </i></span></span><br />
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It was late on a Thursday night on the third floor of the Moody Memorial Library at Baylor University. I was there because I didn’t have any homework left to complete for Friday. Well before my Senior year, I had figured out that when I went to the library, I almost always ended up staying until closing time. I just couldn’t help it. And when I was there, it was usually on the third floor, browsing through the religion section.<br />
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I would wander down the aisles (typically BR through BX in the Library of Congress cataloging system), running my eyes along the spines of dusty old hardbacks and broken-spined paperbacks. When something would catch my attention, I’d thumb through the book. And when it had sufficiently engaged my curiosity, I’d sit right there on the floor and start reading.<br />
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It was there that I had essentially become an Episcopalian. I had been on an ecclesiastical pilgrimage of sorts since high school. As I was fulfilling my own personal pledge to actually read through every page of the Bible, I began to find that the words on the page didn’t always match up exactly with what I was had heard from the Baptist pulpit of my younger days (nor from the non-denominational pastors of the church I attended during high school). My church-shopping first led me to become a Lutheran shortly before I left for college, but I was still on a journey.<br />
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New questions about church order and apostolic succession parked myself in the ‘Church of England’ section of Moody Library many a night. I was particularly captivated by the collection of addresses given at the Anglo-Catholic Congresses of the 1920s and 30s. I was not your typical Baylor Bear. Although I am told that the first professor at the university back in the days of the old Republic was an Episcopalian himself.<br />
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When I came across this little tome on the theological proclivities of National Socialist Christians, I was again floored. It was only 53 pages long and except for the title page, looked like it was typed on a type-writer. It must have been a dissertation. I sat there on the cold linoleum, leaning next to books about Christians harassed by <i>il Duce</i> in pre-war Italy and books about the struggle of the church in Norway, turning page after intern-typed page. I am a slow reader and had only gotten about half-way through the book.<br />
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At 10:40, the lights began to dim and there was a call for final selections to be brought to the check-out desk. On November 14, 1996, I checked out The Nazi Christ and took it with me to my grandmother’s house in Shreveport, Louisiana over the Thanksgiving holiday break, where I read through it again. When I got back to Baylor, I checked it out again, finally surrendering it to the university in time for Christmas.<br />
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<i>The Nazi Christ</i> was written by Eugene S. Tanner, Ph.D. and published by Edwards Brothers in 1942. Dr. Tanner was an Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Tulsa, a small Presbyterian college in Oklahoma. He wrote two other small books after this. What I didn’t happen to notice at first is that Tanner was essentially reporting on this new Christian movement in Germany that was reinterpreting the biblical Jesus as a non-Jewish figure of Nordic myth—a German savior for the German people. It was not a sensational exposé (though the topic was no less sensational) but a very timely and scholarly contribution. All but one of the sources Tanner used had not been available in an English translation.<br />
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At the time (1942), The United States was just entering World War Two and Germany was at the height of it’s strength. The Axis powers had yet to stall and it looked like even if there were no thousand-year Reich, Nazism would at least dominate the life of Europe for generations to come. Tanner was documenting what looked like the wave of the future.<br />
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What had me floored was my introduction to the concept that faithful Christians in Nazi Germany would have their own version of Christ. I was fully aware that Germany was what one would rightly call a Christian nation both before and after the war (as were all the other nations of Europe). And I was also quite aware that both the major sects of German Christianity, Lutheran and Catholic, were characterized by an anti-Semitic strain that was both pervasive and commonplace.<br />
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But I had always blithely assumed that the truly rabid anti-Semites, the really serious Nazis, were Christian in name only. They would have been those who were irregular church-goers at best, those who were not converted in their hearts, those who were cultural Christians, those whose interest lay much more in politics and nationalism than in the worship of the Jewish God-man.<br />
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Well I was right about one thing. They were in fact <i>cultural</i> Christians, but not what I had in mind. Tanner was introducing me to the real-life example of sincere Christian believers whose beliefs were shaped, even distorted, by the culture around them.<br />
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These were not Christians who rarely went to church on a Sunday. These were Christians who were in church every Sunday, who took up the offerings, who ran the Sunday Schools, who served on governing boards, who were the pastors and theologians of the German Christian Movement.<br />
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It still seemed rather baffling. How could people be so blind? How could people who read their Bible and knew their Bible have such unbiblical views. With the extreme nature of Tanner’s subject, we need not kid ourselves. This was not a simple matter of interpretation. This was a matter of people being totally blind to words on a page printed in black and white.<br />
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After all, how could a body of believing Christians accept the biblical concept that God revealed himself to Abraham and his descendants, chose the Hebrew people as his own, gave them a land of promise, miraculously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, established them as a nation, dwelt in a Temple in Jerusalem, and then became incarnate as a Jewish man to be the Savior of the world . . . How could they believe all that and have <i>anything</i> to do with Nazi ideology or with Hitler, much less a final solution to the Jewish “problem”?<br />
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It boggles the mind. How could anyone grasp such an obvious contradiction? It was no wonder that Tanner’s first chapter was titled, “The Nazi Christ is Rescued from Judaism.” He went on to describe how the anti-establishment part of Jesus’ story was played up and his heritage was ignored. Some even speculated that he had a Nordic lineage to make the Savior seem more identifiable to German people.<br />
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Jesus repudiating the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees became the first person speaking anti-Semitic truth to power. Jesus over-turning the money-changers in the Temple became the first anti-Semite chasing those dirty, greedy Jews out of God’s sacred place. Once the spotlights start to hit their marks and the misdirection and skipped passages take root, you can see how the transformation took place. People followed the misdirection because they were already pointed in that direction to begin with. They were directed by culture before they were misdirected by fraudulent teachers. People will find what they expect to find. More than that, people will see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.<br />
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Jesus was a problem to the authorities in his own day, as he has been in every age. They thought they had done away with him by crucifixion. Tanner concluded his book with the thought, “The crucifixion was only the first in a long series of devices by which the Western world has attempted to be rid of Jesus . . . the most subtle of these devices has been reinterpretation.”<br />
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<span style="color: #ffd966;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>It’s not just other people</i></span></span><br />
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Our Wednesday Bible study in Comanche was an intimate little group of half a dozen regular attendees. We had been discussing for some time what we would study next. No ideas seemed to stand out. I said I’d think about it over the summer break.<br />
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Every January, the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth have a silent retreat at the Montserrat Jesuit Retreat Center north of Dallas. At the 2009 retreat, led by the later Father Ralph Walker, I had picked up Pope Benedict’s book <i>Jesus of Nazareth</i> from the on-site bookshop. It was the first of three volumes. This one covered the story of Jesus in the gospels from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry at his baptism up to his transfiguration on Mount Tabor. I started reading while I was on the retreat, but I didn’t pick it up again until the summer.<br />
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It seemed like a perfect book to use as a guide for our little Bible study. It was essentially a guided tour of the gospels. I suggested it to the others and we took it up that Fall.<br />
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I’m not sure how far into the book I’d gotten during the retreat, but it was surely past page 15. And it was not until the second time through it that I found myself “floored” once again. When we looked at the book as a group, the passage on the baptism of Jesus leaped off the page because I noticed something that I had seen many times before, but never really noticed. Even though the Holy Father brought attention to it, that detail went right past me the first time around.<br />
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Speaking of John the Baptist, the Pope explained that Mark “reports that ‘there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins’ (Mk 1:5). John’s baptism includes the confession of sins. The Judaism of the day was familiar both with more generally formulaic confession of sin and with a highly personalized confessional practice in which an enumeration of individual sinful deeds was expected.”<br />
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“. . . confessing their sins.” My cognitive process was interrupted by a hiccup that jarred my gray matter. Prior to that moment, I had read or heard something different than what was on the page. When Mark 1:5 came to my ears or eyes, what went through my brain was not “confessing their sins,” but rather “confessing that they were sinners,” or perhaps “confessing their sinfulness.”<br />
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How could I have missed this detail for so many years? I checked different translations. I checked the Greek text. The problem was not on the paper; the problem was in my head. I saw and heard what I expected to see and hear. Because my culture was that I had grown up as a Baptist. And sermon after sermon in that theological tradition had concluded with an altar call and the sinners prayer. I knew by heart that what precedes baptism was the conviction and confession, “Yes Lord, I am a sinner.” This was step one of conversion.<br />
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Even after several years in a new theological tradition where private, sacramental auricular confession before a priest was not just an accepted norm but something I practiced myself, it had not sunk in to the point where my cultural formation could recognize the plain words of Scripture. It never would have even occurred to me that the penitent and remorseful Jews wading into the Jordan River to be baptized by John would not merely have confessed their sinfulness and acknowledged their need for God’s forgiveness and mercy, but actually confessed the misdeeds they had done, transgressing the revealed will of God as written in the Law of Moses.<br />
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It was right there in black and white and it had been there all along. People will find what they expect to find. More than that, people will see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. It was not just other people. I had done the same thing.<br />
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The parallel text of Mark 1:5 is Matthew 3:6. They both say the same thing, that the people were baptized by John, “confessing their sins.” Matthew 3:6 is read on the Second Sunday of Advent in “Year A” and Mark 1:5 is read on the Second Sunday of Advent in “Year B.” Which means that I had heard this passage in church at least ten times during Sunday worship (not to mention all the times I read or heard it outside of Sunday morning) and had even preached on the texts at least twice, possible three or four times. I had earned a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Religion and a three-year Master of Divinity degree. I had been ordained a priest and taught the faith to newcomers and those who had grown up in the church. And I didn’t notice what the Bible actually said for the first seventeen years after being a Baptist—the summer of 2009.<br />
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The discovery of the way that culture had shaped and distorted believers of the German Christian Movement gave me an awareness of how this is possible, but the personal experience of my own culture blinding me to a quite straightforward biblical passage got me thinking about how common this phenomenon really could be. Was this the paradigm that addressed the divergences in faith an practices among different Christians, not even just between churches but within the same church? It seemed to fit all the hot-button, controversial issues that have confronted Christians and their churches.<br />
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How was it that Bible-believing Christians could be slave-owners? Or supporters of segregation? Or not see a moral problem with abortion? Or support the ordination of women? Or think that faith was an energy field once could harness to create wealth and power? Or not object to the redefinition of marriage? Or accept the idea that one could be “born into the wrong sex”?<br />
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This book is my exploration of that very question—of how our culture shapes and even distorts our understanding of the Bible.
Fr Timothy Matkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10794558184459092532noreply@blogger.com0